If LIBRilRY OF CONGRESS.?! 

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||UNIT.ED STATES 'OF AMERICA. 






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DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



V 



BY 



E.'' T.'" C N E A D. 



■ JOY AND GLADNDSS SHALL BE FOUND THEREIN, THANKSGIVING, AND THE 
VOICE OF MELODY." — Isa. li. 3. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1862 



^^ COPYP, 






INGIO'-' 



Ts.' 



7 ."^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by 

J. ALFRED EISENBREY, 

In the Clerk's OflRce of the District Court of the United States in and for the 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



2. V A 2. 



TO MRS. ELIZA CONRAD. 



Fro:!iI thee, pure source of Conrad's birth, 
Arose his virtues ; through thee ran 

Whatever heavenly gleams of worth 
Above us dignified the man. 

By thee his childish soul was taught. 
His nobler instincts brought in play, 

That, while with darkened days he fought. 
Flashed outward through his mortal clay 

What if they cry, who pry and probe, 
" Lo I here a speck, or there a flaw !' 

He scorned the dust upon his robe 
Far more than any one who saw. 



t DEDICATION. 

The dust lie gathered on his path 

Was common dust, — what skirt is clear ? — 

He shook it off, in holy wrath, 

Ere to God's presence he drew near. 

merciful and patient God, 

We trust these songs of faith and love. 

Pleading for him beneath the sod, 
Have moved as only song can move ! 

And that the soul Thy bounteous hands 
Gave to his mother, free from stain, 

Before Thy face transfigured stands, 

From tainting earth washed pure again ; 

So that she too may come before 

Thy mercy -seat quite reconciled. 
And to her bosom take once more 

The early memory of her child ! 

I, as he wished, and in his name, 

To thee, whose love o'erruled his fate. 

This last, best chaplet of his fame 
Thus solemnly do dedicate. 

G. H. B. 

Philadelphia, July 1, 1862. 



PREFACE. 



The poems contained in this volume need neither 
preface nor apology. A word of explanation, however, 
may be due to the reader for the unfinished condition of 
some of them. My lamented friend, Conrad, left behind 
him a mass of manuscript poems, which, fortunately, fell 
into the possession of one who cherished his memory with 
filial affection and the relics of his genius with commend- 
able pride. Among many fragmentary works, which were 
carefully examined and arranged by the hands to which 
they were committed, was found the present volume of 
devotional poems. The manuscript was submitted to me 
for such revision as might better adapt it for publication. 
I found little to criticize, and nothing that I presumed to 
amend. It is placed before the reader in the precise 



6 PEEFACE. 

state in which it was left by its author. I have interfered 
in no way with the original design. In my opinion, it 
would be something like sacrilege to retouch, however 
lightly, a work that addresses itself more directly to the 
religious than to the artistic sense. 

I can but regret that the author was not spared to 
finish a labour thus admirably begun, and whose purpose 
is so thoroughly interwoven with the holiest aspirations of 
the mind. Those who knew Conrad, and were admitted 
to the privilege of his unselfish friendship, will pause over 
these memorials of his solitary hours with thoughtful 
reverence, and will recognize in them the hidden motives 
that influenced his social relations and gave birth to the 
lofty sentiments that inspired his oratory and won deserved 
applause for his dramatic writings. 

God has more secret worshippers than are known to the 
world. It is well for us to understand that one whose 
whole life was apparently passed in the bustling ambition 
of 23ublic affairs, had yet in his inmost heart a sanctuary 
which was devoted to the purer service of heaven, into 
whose solemn recesses nothing worldly intruded, and 
before whose shrine his ti'oubled spirit found rest and 
consolation. I confess that I cannot look upon these 
poems with dry eyes. I pity the friend of Conrad who 
can. I see in these upward struggles of his soul the 
workings of a nature that sought to purify itself before its 



PREFACE. 



Maker ; that stood amid the fierce rebellions of life loyal 
to that fundamental religious sentiment which under- 
lies all poetic minds; and that, through every j^hase 
of its existence, preserved some trace of the heavenly 
brightness of its source. Here is the key to much that 
was not understood in Conrad's character even by those 
who knew him best. His passionate enthusiasm in a just 
cause, — his scorn of wrong and of wrong-doers, — his faith- 
ful and tender friendship, — his patience under adversity, — 
his tolerance of well-meant rebuke, even from the lips of 
his intellectual inferiors, — all these qualities are the natural 
expressions of a soul that could bear to be alone with its 
God ; and which, in that awful solitude, had been taught 
its zeal, its pride, its affection, its endurance, and its 
Christian humility. 

There is a lesson contained in this volume which no 
one should slight. It is the most solemn that can be 
taught by Conrad's eventful life. It is more convincing 
than his most logical argument, more eloquent than his 
most brilliant oration, more moving than his deepest 
tragedy, more consoling than the sweetest of his earlier 
poems. It would be a poor compliment to the reader's 
discernment to pursue a theme so obvious. Suggestions 
such as these are better developed in the silence of a 
man's own heart, — when the tongues of his sinful fellow- 
mortals are at rest, when the delusions of his senses 



8 PEEFACE. 

have lost their power, and when his soul stands in the 
same relation toward its Maker as the soul of the author 
stood in the act of composition. Whatever may be the 
moral effect of this lesson on those who survive him, it 
cannot fail to deepen their respect and affection for his 
character, and to shed a fresh and enduring fragrance 
around the memory of Conrad. 

G. H. B. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

To Mrs. Eliza Conrad. By Gr, H. Boker 3 

Preface. By CI. H. Boker 5 

Sinai. 

The Mount 15 

Deity 1'^ 

Image-Worship "-^ 

Blasphemy ^ ■•• 

The Sabbath 35 

Filial Piety : 40 

Homicide 47 

Incontinency "1 

Improbity 64 

Calumny 71 

2 9 



10 CONTENTS. 

Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer. ^^^^ 

Pater Noster 79 

Qui es in Coelis 81 

Sanctificetur Nomen tuum 83 

Veniat Eegnum tuum 85 

Fiat Voluntas tua, sicut in Coelo, ita etiam in Terra .. 87 

Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie 89 

Et remitte nobis Debita nostra, sicut et nos remitti- 

mus Debitoribus nostris 91 

Et ne nos inducas in Tentationeni 93 

Sed libera nos ab illo Malo 95 

Quia tiuim est Regnum, et Potentia, et Gloria in 

secula. Amen 97 

Bible Breathings. 

Benedictus 101 

Death the Deliverer 104 

The Last Shadows HO 

Birthday Greetings 112 

Satan's Hypocrite 115 

A Plea for the Persecutor 119 

Advent 121 

The Devoted 123 

"Be of good cheer: it is 1 1" 127 

A Thought 130 

Wisdom's Ways 131 

The Joy of Worth I33 

The Stricken ^35 



CONTENTS. 11 

Bible Breathings. p^^j, 

Eeligion and Morality 138 

Work while it is Day 140 

Life of the Righteous., , 143 

The Absent.— A Sonnet 14(3 

Sonnet to S. A 148 

The Angel and. the Infant 150 

The Infinite 153 

Matin Anthem 160 

Vesper Notes 163 

The Christian's Trust 165 

Sin no more 168 

Sonnet 170 

The Lingering Winter 172 

Sonnet on the Death of an Aged Christian 175 

Notes 177 



SINAI. 



'3tsD5 sdiii unto liim: 3f tlian milt tm inta lift, kttp ttje romnmnlinicnts. 

Matt. xi.\. 17. 



®h^ |Ho«nt, 



Afid Moses brought forth the i:)eople out of the camj) to meet 
viith God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And 
Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord de- 
scended upon it in fire : and the smoke thereof ascended as the 
smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And 
when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder 
and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. 

Exodus, xix. 17, 18, 19. 



'Tis day : but conscious morning dares not shine ; 
And Sinai's storm-scarr'd brow frowns dimly down 
Upon the host before that mountain shrine : 
Far o'er the desert, with their God alone, 
Tribe upon tribe, and tent o'er tent, are strown 
The pilgrim people. Anxious age is there ; 
Glad childhood, hushed with awe till now unknown ; 
"Worn warrior, matron pale, and maiden fair : 
All upward gaze, and breathe — but hardly breathe — a 
prayer. 

15 



16 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

II. 

He Cometh ! Lo, unearthly fires alight 
Upon the shuddering mountain ; and, on high, 
Involving smoke pavilions from the sight 
The fatal glory. O'er the quivering sky, 
Quick and convulsed, the panic lightnings fly ; 
High Horeb staggers 'neath the thunder-stroke ; 
The loose rocks roll from quaking Sinai, 
When hark! A voice — it stills the thunder — spoke; 
Loud and more loud; and thus the syllabled cataract 
broke ! 



I am t\)t 3LorlJ t!)2 (EtolJ. ^Ctou s!)alt fiabt no otl^tr jgolJjs 6t{ort mt. 



I AM tlie Lord thy God ! Oli, well miglit heaven 
Veil its dimm'd brow, and rebel earth turn pale! 
For nor to man nor seraph e'er were given 
Words like to these. And still those tones prevail. 
Seas to the sky, the mountain to the dale, 
And world to world, repeat them endlessly ; 
Infinity's unbourn'd recess the tale 
Keverberates ; and, o'er a shoreless sea. 
Time bears the echo on to awed Eternity! 

3 17 



18 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



II. 



If hush'd were grateful Nature's loud acclaim ; 
Could heaven, and eartli, and ocean all be still ; 
Nor life, death, matter, spirit, speak His name ; — 
Yet would the whisper'd truth the bosom fill, 
And murmuring conscience force the dotard will 
To own the Lord is God. And false are they 
AVho gaze upon the sun whose glories thrill 
The air and earth, and feign to doubt the day. 
The fool's heart^ is a lie : the eyeless feel its ray. 



III. 

A petted madness ! Conscience, from its cell. 
Sees each doubt rise, and flicker to and fro : 
'Tis the steam Stygian of the heart's deep hell ; 
Or the poor pride that would a shadow throw, 
By thrusting its mote mind before the glow 
And glory of its God ; or wit insane. 
That builds dim Babels on the world below. 
To scale the heavens ; and, dizzy with its pain, 
Mistakes, for wheeling worlds, its wild and whirling 
brain. 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 19 

IV. 

All hearts acknowledge, — let all hearts adore ! 

For that He is The God, it is His due ; 

Of Space, with spheres, like dew-drops, sprinkled 

o'er, — 
Space to whose bounds no seraph wing e'er flew, — 
Spheres aged, when Eternity was new. 
Bow — for he is Our God — before His throne, — 
A God of love to those His will who do. 
Of all Creator, bend to Him alone ; 
For we are His,— He made us, — His, and not our own. 



He is our Sovereign ; worship Him with awe ; 
The First, the Last, the Universal Lord : 
His will the only power, the only law ; 
All things are blest as with that will they chord, 
For it was with the Word, and was the Word ; 
The harmony by whose almighty tone 
The deep heart of the universe is stirr'd ; 
The tie that knits the known to the unknown ; 
Faith, Hope, earth, heaven, and all, to the eternal 
throne. 



20 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

VI. 

All happiness is harmony with heaven ; 

All that invades that harmony is woe : 

And the space-spanning symphonies are riven 

Ev'n by ill thoughts, that stir the heart's hush'd 

flow, 
As lakes are stirr'd by night winds whispering low ; 
The touch a discord, and the voice a wail. 
War against God, and insect man his foe ! 
Better the pale mist war against the gale : 
At guilt so darkly rash well may creation pale. 



VII. 

As Nature prompts, in every age and clime, 
Bow'd before Nature's God the wise and good. 
The cherish'd children of all honour'd Time : 
And thus it must be. Ev'n the Atheist would 
Trust not an Atheist with a brother's blood. 
Who knows not God, knows nothing but despair ; 
Nor feels, whose heart throbs not with gratitude; 
That thought, — that throb! all life should centre 
there, — 
All earth an altar be, and incense all the air. 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 21 



VIII. 



'Tis spoken, Thou shall have no gods but me .' 
Yet are they gender'd in the seething brain, 
Like monsters in the slime of Nile : we see 
Creations of Philosophy inane, 
Phastasma shapeless rise as gods to reign : 
Mystery and Chance contend about the throne ; 
"While Substance, Order, Thought, the strife maintain. 
A breath ! — the shadows melt ; — God rei2;ns alone ; 
The dream is fled ; — Alas, the dreamer is undone ! 



IX. 

A deathlier chill the gods of old inspire : 
Adramelech, whose incense was the gore 
Of infants hissing in his altar-fire ;^ 
Moloch, the mighty, horrible, and hoar, 
Whom Israel's sage and sorrow bow'd before;^ 
Dagon, o'erwhelm'd in Samson's earthquake throe 
Baal and Ashtaroth, whom to adore'' 
Israel forsook the living God : and lo ! 
She stands, in stricken wrath, a wonder and a woe ! 



22 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



Nor less abliorr'd Olympus' motley crowd, 
Its liiiman power and passion deified : 
Salacious Jove, and Mars the crimson-brow' d; 
And dusky Vulcan, with his wanton bride ; 
The mirth of monsters, war, and lust, and pride ; 
Folly and guilt empyreal and sublime ! 
Their heaven a den with reeking orgies dyed ; 
And earth their scene of foul and frolic crime, 
Where, beasts, they raged in blood, or, reptiles, roll'd 
in slimeJ 



XI. 

Yet to such gods, in earth's vile spume engender'd. 
Have bow'd bright minds and natures pure and 

high; 
Ev'n Sophroniscus' son^ and Tully render'd 
The shuddering faith they dared not all deny : 
The lyre was swept, as thunder sweeps the sky, 
To them ; and Phidias' wizard chisel woke 
A life that would not, with their frail gods, die. 
So idle human wisdom ! until spoke 
The living God; and Truth's eternal Day-Spring broke. 



DEVOTIONAL TOEMS. 



XII. 



Ev'ii 'neatli tliat blessed light lost man essays 
To throne his dust-born deities on high : 
A million hearts the Arab sluiced to raise 
His sensual monster to the startled sky ; 
O'er fourth the globe still Allah is the cry, 
Nor from the sin are lands more favour'd free ; 
Worms from their fellow- worms remission buy ; 
Creatures to sinful creatures bend the knee ; — 
Of death and dust and bones the dull idolatry 



XIII. 

This world, — how many gods doth it behold ! 
How many votaries soul-fed altars rear 
To Pleasure, Power, to Glory, or to Gold, — 
As if there were no other God to fear! 
How many raise heart-idols, — ;iustly dear, 
But Mai, worshipp'd, whatsoe'er they be, — 
Where He should reign, with not a rival near ! 
God, the One, living God, doth He not see ? 
'Tis spoken : Thou shalt have none other gods hut me 



24 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



XIV. 



The Lord our God is one Lord ;" He is light, 
Li Him there is no darkness, nor can be ;'" 
His judgments are a great deep;" and His might 
Greater than noise of many waters ;^^ He 
'Tis that inhabiteth eternity.^^ 
He is the Lord, and changeth not.''' His eye 
Beholds the nations ;^^ but remembereth we 
Are dust.""' To know, to love the Lord on high, 
Is all for which 'tis wise to live, or well to die ! 



ff.f)ou s^alt not make unto tijtc ano srabtit ima^c, or anj Itknuss 
of nnj tf)in5 tfiat is in I)taicn aiobt, or tj)at is in tijt tarti) itntatt), 
or ti)at is in tf)£ ioatrr unbtr tf^t tarti) : Jtou sf)alt not ioto &oton 
t^2StIf to tf)tm, nor scrbt tijcm: for 3: tijE iori tf)B (Gtolj am a jealous 
(Gcots, bisiting the iniquitn of t^i. fatijcrs upon ti)c ttilirtn unto ti}j 
ti^irll ani fourtf) generation of tl)tm t!)at tate me ; nnh sijolxiing merrc 
unto tfjousanlis of tijem tljat lobe me, ani keep mn eommaniJments. 



God is a Spirit, and should be adored 
In spirit and in truth ; but, lost to good, 
The soul yields not such worship to its Lord : 
From upas-trees may myrrh or balm exude ? 
The pool whose waters long have lifeless stood, 
Black and polluted, stirr'd not by the wing 
Of bird or breeze, reflects, from its dull flood. 
No gleam of heaven ; though morn its glories bring, 
Or night its diamond wealth, with lavish bountv, 
flino;. 

4 9.S 



26 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

II. 

Conscious of fluttering, like a wither'd leaf, 
Upon the breatli of some mysterious fate. 
Trembling with weakness, and subdued by grief, 
Man would, with prayers, that power propitiate. 
So prone his soul, in this his fallen state, 
He downward looks for God : but should some ray 
Uplift his brow, he shrinks, in fear or hate, 
From the pure radiance of the sky away, 
To gods more like himself, and hails his kindred clay. 



III. 

'Tis first, perchance, the medium of his prayer, 

Or likeness of Him who no likeness hath 

In heaven nor earth, in water nor in air, 

Th' Unseen and Unconceived ! whose righteous 

wrath 
Sweepeth the mockers from its whirlwind path : 
But soon, no more a type, — 'tis Deity ! 
They bend before it, with a sottish faith, 
"Whether the sun or stars, the earth or sea, 
Keptile, beast, bird, — no thing too base a god to be ! 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 27 



IV. 



To draw near unto God is to retrace 
Man's wanderings from primeval bliss : To bow 
To earth-made idols than himself more base, 
Is with a deadlier curse to brand his brow, 
And sink his nature that of fiends below ; 
For they believe and tremble. Hence God's first 
And fearfullest threats of vengeance and of woe 
Upon the grovellers and their ofi'spring burst, 
Who make them mimic gods, and bow to earth 
accurst. 



V. 



The heart of man! it is a fearful thing; 

A soil whose germs, though warm'd b}^ Heaven's 

pure sun, 
And water'd by Truth's never-tainted spring, 
Bipen to fruitage for the evil one! 
Alas, the frailty of a race undone ! 
That, from a faith so holy and so high. 
Could, when their round six centuries had run. 
Lapse back to idols fashion'd for the eye. 
To wood and stone and paint-dark iconolatry ! 



28 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

VI. 

What was the spirit — was it good or ill? — 
That bade Irene, for her king and mate, 
With the death-draught the treacherous chalice fill, 
And o'er his blacken'd corse, with bigot hate. 
Hasten the edict of her people's fate, — 
Death to all those who worshipp'd God alone ? 
And what were they — or saints or fiends ? — who sate 
At Nice, to seal that deed of horror done, 
And bathe with martyr-blood their blocks of wood 
and stone ?' 



VII. 

But Murder paled; for lived their prince, — her son : 
Must he too die ? The tigress dooms her child! 
Woo'd to the breast that nursed him, he is won, — 
And lost! by Nature's holiest plea beguiled. 
Upon his birth-couch, as he, slumbering, smiled, 
She guides the assassin's daggers to his eyes ; 
His shrieks the arch'd roof echoes wide and wild : 
Stony and stern, the murd'ress mocks his cries ; 
Though horror shakes the earth and shrouds the 
startled skies ! 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 29 



VIIT. 



And thus, o'er trampled Nature, madly driven, 
By monkish monsters and by demons led, 
To tear their Maker from His throne in heaven. 
And raise their graven mockeries in His stead. 
Women unsex'd, the earth to faintness bled. 
Irene, Theodora, murder-hued, 
(The savage sorceress rose a saint, when dead ! ) 
Peopled the skies with deities of wood ; 
While monks their idol-rites with guiltless bloof 
embrued. 



IX. 

Dark is the curse a jealous God hath spoken ; 

And darkly in the spirit's awful night. 

In vice and war and woe, that curse hath broken ! 

Idolatry and Ignorance unite 

The race to crush and curse, debase and blight; 

The other each reflecting, as the wave 

The storm-rent sky. Their reign is death's. They 

smite 
Th' unborn, and make God's earth a wolfy cave, 
A lair where dark lusts lurk, and maniac passions rave. 



30 DEVOTIONAL rOEMS. 



X. 



Souls faint and wither 'neatli an idol's shade ; 
Minds perish wrapp'd in Galileo's chain ; 
Freedom bows not to man, nor gods man-made, 
But, dying, spurns them with a stern disdain, 
And joins the hosts by monkish mercy slain. 
Falls Freedom thus ? By Heaven's high promise, — 

No! 
God livctli; man was not redeem'd in vain : 
His Truth, His Right shall reign o'er all below ; 
Each fetter rent, all knees to Him alone shall bow ! 



§tosipltcmjj. 



2'f)ou sijalt not taftc t^j name cf fin iorit lf)B (Koll in bain : for 
tf)£ l.orIJ toill not ^olll f)im guiltlrss lf)at ta'kttf) f)is name in bain. 



That awful name ! Earth, from her inmost heart, 
Through every fibre, quivers at the word ; 
Stars hear it, in their tranquil spheres, and start ; 
And the far waves of slumbering Space are stirr'd : 
'Tis breathed in heaven with awe ; in hell 'tis heard 
AVith shrieking horror. Reckless man alone. 
By love unmoved, by terror undeterr'd. 
Blasphemes : nor with the echo dies the tone ; 
'Tis borne, from orb to orb, to God's insulted throne ! 

31 



32 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



ir. 



They who the witness God invoke in vain, 
Invoke the avenging God ; for He hath sworn, 
Ev'n by Himself: dares mocking man profane 
That oath with idle utterance and with scorn ? 
Oh, better had the ribald ne'er been born ! 
To bind the lawless ; rule from wrong to wrest ; 
To seal the pact of peace, by tempests torn ; 
To guard the right, the sacred truth attest ; — 
For these the good man's vow, — for these that vow is 
blest ! 



III. 

But when men lift their impious hands on high 
To serve the idle purpose of an hour; 
In Traffic's trifles mouth the accustom'd lie; 
Or buy, with perjuries, wealth, or place, or power, — 
Toying with death as children with a flower ; — 
'Tis fearful thus the living God to brave ! 
And evil vows have ever evil dower : 
Such Saul's to Endor, over Samuel's grave;' 
And Jephthah's. Was there none, — no power, the 
maid to save? 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 33 



IV. 



When, witli no victor's pride, tlie victor trode," 
Faltering and fearful, on to Mizpah's gate, 
To meet the offering he had vow'd to God, 
Whisper'd no bodement, — now, alas, too late ! — 
The doom so soon to make him desolate? 
Glad music wakes; he lifts his livid brow; 
Horror! his child, rejoicing, woos her fate: 
''Alas, my daughter, thou hast brought me low; 
For I have vow'd to God, nor can revoke my vow ! 



V. 

She said unto him: "If, my father, thou 

Hast vow'd unto the Lord, be it to me, 

For Israel's sake, according to thy vow: 

But let me once again my mountains see: 

There let me wander with my virgins, free. 

And bend my young heart to its lot of woe. 

And learn to leave this lovely earth and thee!" 

The stricken father, sobbing, murmur'd, "Go!" 

She went, — return'd, — and bow'd her meekly to the 

blow. 

5 



34 D E V T 1 X A L P E M S. 



VI. 



Swear not at all: hy Heaven, for 'tis God's throne, 
Nor earth, for 'tis His footstool : Is it well 
To mock the bidding of tlie Holy One? 
Yet lips there are that, like mere craters, swell 
With dull upheavings of the nether hell, 
Bubbling and noisome ever. 'Tis their pride 
To link God's name with language foul and fell, 
His spirit spurn. His reign and wrath deride, 
And pour, with black'ning lips, the dread, blaspheming 
, tide. 



VII. 

"What horrid madness, what star-conjured spell, 
Hangs this strange poison on the babbling tongue ? 
Th' insensate sin from Nature never fell ; 
Ne'er from the heart's o'ershadow'd promptings 

sprung. 
Its opes no Ophir; on no brow has hung 
Fame's laurel crown, or pleasure's myrtle wreath; 
Its charms no sage has praised, no bard has sung : 
What, then, wins man by this curse-cumber'd breath? 
He mocks a Deity, and wins — 'tis all — a death. 



®h^ cfiitoivth. 



ilnncmtitr t^c saijiat!) Iiaj to ktcp it fjob. Six is^s sljalt tijou 
laiour, anii J&o all lf)2 incrk : iut tijc st&tutij &a2 is tf)c saibati) of t1)c 
ioriJ ti^B GoJj: itt it t!)ou si&alt not io an^ Sworl?, tf)ou, nor tl)2 son, 
nor tf)2 bau^^tcr, ti^j mansirSant, nor tbj maibstrbant, nor tl)2 rattle, 
nor tf)2 stranger tf)at is Suit^in tf)2 satfs: for in sii Ija^s t|)t lori 
mnht l)td.htn anb tart^, t^t sta, anti all t|)at in tljtm is, anb rrsttb 
ti)£ stbtntib lian ; iofjtrfforr tljc jHorir ikssili tf)E saiiati] baB, anii 
tallotocli it. 



Blessed the Law which, from its restless self, 
Rescues the toil-worn world, that else would know. 
In this wild race for feme, or power, or pelf, 
No time for joy or duty here below; 
No time the big drops from its wrinkled brow 
To wipe, and look up to the pitying sky. 
Bondmen of life, whose king is Care, men bow 
Their burthen'd backs, nor pjause a prayer to sigh ; 
But, tottering onward, toil, — and, ever toiling, die! 

35 



36 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

II. 

The stars out-watching, o'er their vigils bend 
The statesman painful and the student pale ; 
And gainful hours to Traffic's toils man lend 
The sallow colours of his golden Baal; 
And Labour sways the sledge and swings the flail : 
Toil and still toil ; health, sport, and love forgot ! 
Till brain and brawn, till soul and sinew fail. 
Of all life's waste, its God would own no spot, 
But that His Sabbath saith, " Ye weary, labour 

not r 



III. 

Smiled not God's Sabbath on Life's endless storm, 
Our race would roughen, under sordid Care, 
Till Youth forgot its cheer, and Love its charm ; 
And man lost all of gentle and of fair, — 
Left, by neglected Heaven, to dark despair. 
But beams the holy day ! Not loosely spent. 
Not lost in idless ; but devote to prayer, 
To lofty lore, to love and sweet content; 
The peace and joy of Heaven awhile to Earth are 
lent. 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



IV, 



Freedom, the boast of many a sordid slave, 
Whose heavy fetters dank around his soul : 
Freedom, that dwells but with the pure and brave, 
And spurns the bondman who brooks Sin's control: — 
Nor ever did, nor will, her flag unroll 
Above the land whose Sabbaths are defiled ; 
AVhere Sunday jugglers trick and minstrels troll. 
And idle fools are by worse fools beguiled : 
Not there she bides; but seeks her Sabbath in the 
wild. 



Lo ! now the happy Sabbath sun shines forth, 

And the worn world shakes off its lumbering care ; 

Gentle and joyous spirits walk the earth, 

And all is calm and soft, and bright and fair. 

The village is astir ; the voice of prayer 

Floats, with the streamlet's hymn that murmurs 

near. 
In solemn cadence, on the morning air. 
And tells, the day to lowly labour dear, 
The blessed Sabbath, praise be unto God, is here ! 



38 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

VI. 

Afar, o'er hill and valley, stream and glen, 
The ancient church-bell's peal is blithely tost : 
Now, on the fresh breeze, cheerly heard, and then, 
In the quick quivering of the green leaves, lost. 
Prompt at the summons, moves the straggling host : 
The youths clear fence and field with frolic bound ; 
The ruddy maids, their prudent mothers' boast. 
Demurely step, sly stealing glances round. 
Nor leave the branchy path that thrids the burial- 
ground. 



VII. 

Around the low-brow'd porch they pause awhile, 
Beneath the elm that towers above the dome ; 
Exchanging, gravely, greetings without guile, 
They learn the welfare of each honest home. 
But soon the hum is hush'd; the Pastor come, 
Advancing slow, their toil-bronzed brows they bend ; 
And kneeling as he opes the sacred tome. 
Their gushing hearts and blended tones ascend, 
In prayer and praise, to God, their Father and their 
Friend. 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 39 



VIII. 



Happy that band, reliant and devout ! 
The dusky artisan whose brow, now bright, 
Expands with love and joy ; the yeoman stout. 
Whose harvests are the bounty of God's might : 
Matron and maiden, old and young, unite 
Heart-offerings to God's low-roof 'd house to bring, 
From which th' intruding oaks exclude the light, 
AVhile to the organ-notes the glad birds sing; 
Yet God is there; and 'tis the palace of Heaven's 
King ! 



IX. 

What, without that which sanctifies the lowly. 
The temple's glory or cathedral's pride? 
Than conqueror's triumphs higher and more holy 
The joys that with the cotter's Sabbath bide. 
The Lord's day past, how sweet, at eventide, 
His blessed sleep whose service has been blest ! 
So may we live in Him who for us died. 
That life may like a Sabbath be possest. 
And death heaven's Sabbath give of rapture and of 
rest ! 



g\M f ictjj. 



Jt^onour tf)p f.itlKr rtnlr tbj moti)tr : tliat tfij bajs mnii 1)C lon^ upon 
tfic Linl) tu!)ici) t^c !Lorb tljj Croii jgibttl) 11]cc. 



I. 

What law is sacred to the wretch who breaks 
The First ? the cradle's code, hy Nature given ? 
God's, in the sire's, authority awakes : 
His sire who mocks, mocks too the Sire of Heaven ! 
Our guard when weak, our guide when error-driven, 
The father reigns ; revere his hoary age, — 
All sacred things are old, — and God's quick levin 
The scorner of white hairs will blast in rage ; 
So perish'd they who mock'd, of old. His Seer and 
Sage.^ 

40 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 41 

II. 

Warm as volcanic springs and strong, should start 
Of Filial Love the full and flowing tide. 
"We of our parents are a sever'd part : 
Fragments of worlds, struck off when orbs collide, 
'Tis said, still near the parent orb abide, 
Eevolving, in love's orbit, round it ever : 
Thus should the heart revolve, in love and pride. 
Around its parent heart, with fond endeavour 
To light its darken'd hours, and watch it, v;earied 
never. 



III. 

And what so worthy of our love ? A glory 
To filial eyes shines forth a parent's light ; 
His ill, — not theirs the study nor the story ; 
For Canaan's curse can still the irreverent smite.^ 
The pleasant play of hearts, when life is bright, 
How can it be forgot? When parents move, 
Our angels, through home's Eden of delight , — 
Our early home, that after dream of love, 
Rosy with earthly bloom, but radiant from above ! 



42 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

IV. 

Oh, out of heaven, there is no love like theirs ! 
And for such love, shall we not yield our own ? 
Self other hearts with sympathy still shares ; 
But selfish thought nor throb in theirs is known. 
That we may minister to them, alone, 
Do others love : all gifts of heart and mind. 
Power, beauty, fame — stays love when these are gone ? 
Lost what we are and have — waits love behind? 
With the first frost it shrinks, and scatters with the 
wind ! 



A parent's love ! What doth it know of change? 
It broods, with seraphs, o'er our cradled sleep ; 
Follows, with fearless faith, o'er life's rough range, 
Nor spares a pause to shudder and to weep. 
The mindless, formless, loveless, it doth keep 
Clasp'd to its holy heart; its living ray 
Lights the loathed lazar couch and dungeon deep ; 
Guilt from the Death-tree frights it not away; 
It clings till all is o'er, — and lingers still to pray, 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 43 

VI. 

For time, nor tears, nor even crime and shame, 
Can quench that spark of heaven's paternal glow ; 
No touch nor taint of earth obscures that flame, 
Tender and truthful o'er all else below. 
And what is he, whose heart-streams do not flow 
Back to their fount? Trust not the churl: for he 
No friend can cherish, softer flame can know, 
Nor love his God. Dark mockery must it be, 
A father scorn'd, — to bend, to Him in heaven, the 
knee. 



VII. 

But love from love withheld, still lives a debt 
That claims the holiest, heart-heap'd gratitude : 
Ev'n from the hour the parents' tear-drops wet 
The infant forehead, has that debt accrued : 
Still heaping gift on gift, and good on good : 
Days, nights, and years of suffering met, not moan'd ; 
And, for their child, all toil and torture woo'd ; 
Earth ne'er beneath a loathlier ingrate groan'd. 
Than he who leaves that debt unanswer'd and 
unown'd. 



44 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



VIII. 



How pure is heaven, that aught more pure can know 
Than is a mother's love! — Draw gently near; 
The place is hallow'd with a mother's woe ! 
The taper hardly lights her trembling tear; 
And on her brow sit Agony and Fear. 
Clasping her child, and still and pale as stone, 
She bends, his breathing quick and low to hear ; 
Explores his faint pulse, while she stays her own ; 
And, on her pallid lip, crushes the struggling groan. 



IX. 

Thus hour by hour, till wears the night away; 
Thus day by day, till Life is shadow'd o'er; 
And beauty's spectral gleam illumes decay : 
And is this naught? Let pensive Memory pore 
O'er each sweet debt, the leal heart's loving lore, 
Till fades the page ! And, at the summons, lo ! 
A father's proud smile warms our hearts once more; 
Piclumed the eye that wont with love to glow; 
And all forgot, awhile, our loneliness and woe ! 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 45 



X. 



That dark eye flashes as it flash'd of yore, 
When, breathing lessons of immortal truth, 
He taught our spirits with his own to soar. 
And gave to Virtue and to God our youth : 
Truth's courage, duty's rigor, mercy's ruth ; 
The aims that make life lovely in defeat; 
The spirit-wealth that mocks at Time's keen tooth ; 
Again the voices of our hearts repeat : 
For Love the lesson taught, — and every tone was 
sweet ! 



xr. 

Ah, who can speak the love that lit our path ; 
That prized our weal beyond the world beside ; 
That wept our wanderings, — ne'er rebuked in wrath : 
And watch'd our triumphs, with o'ergushing pride : 
The age, whose joys and griefs were still supplied 
By love for those whose life became his own ; 
Whose slowly-lapsing, oft-returning, tide 
Still pour'd its riches where its love was sown, 
Till in the ocean lost; — and we were left alone! 



46 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

XII. 

Oh, happy then is he whose memories raise 
No record daiming a repentant tear ! 
Kicher than India's mines a parent's praise 
To him who ne'er that parent's voice may hear. 
Our love his life-charm, — memory passing dear! 
On filial lives heaven's signet is imprest : 
A sire's bright evening speaks a son's day clear ; 
And length of days, tranquillity of breast, 
And blessed offspring, crown the child whom parents 
bless'd. 



XIII. 

Woe to the ingrate child ! Within the heart 
That opens to that ugliest fiend below, 
A thousand kindred demons dark upstart. 
Goading it on to guiltiness and woe. 
The rebel's ruffian hands shall overthrow 
The loves that shelter him ; his friends shall fly ; 
His child, distrusted, shall become his foe ; 
The ravens shall pluck out his mocking eye ; 
Unloved, the wretch shall live, — unbless'd, unpitied, 
die! 



§i0micidt 



QDfjou slnlt not kill. 



Holy is human life ; a mystery 

Beyond the surgeon's ken, the sage's thought : 

Whence comes it ? Why, and whither, doth it flee ? 

Science in vain its secret haunt hath sought : 

Its mystic errand Nature never taught ; 

Man knows not ev'n what bids those heart-springs 

move 
By which Life's current through his frame is 

wrought : 
Yet, guiltily, presumptuous, looks above. 
And dares God's heart to search, God's attributes to 

prove ! 

47 



48 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

II. 

A spark of Deity, the vital ray 
No time can darken, and no death destroy : 
Man's true Hfe is the soul's ; and that the day 
Of earth can ne'er, with needs nor hopes, employ. 
Clod gave it — (it is His) — not as a toy, 
Nor castaway, but in eternal trust : 
This frame. His temple — till we can enjoy 
The heavenly temple of the perfect just : 
Woe to the bloody hand that bows it to the dust ! 



III. 

Thunder alone should speak that sacrilege ! 
God's image crush'd — His living fane o'erthrown ! 
The brute insensate, ev'n in famine's rage, 
Slays not his kind. The First-born's crime is known 
To Eden's outcasts only : that alone 
Combines all wrongs that evil ever knew. 
Life ta'en, — all's ta'en ; — what can for all atone ? 
The quickening sun ; the heaven's irradiate blue ; 
Earth's joy-enkindling thrill — what may that thrill 
renew ? 



D E Y T I N A L r E M S. 49 



IV. 



The wistful warmth, the melody and bliss ; 
Glad health, high hope, boon life around, above ; 
The soft eye melting, and the murmuring kiss ; 
The quivering rapture of electric love ; — • 
Changed ! and for what ? Ah, nevermore may move 
Those eyes full-staring! Stirless, stony, cold. 
But gash'd and red, the frame that vainly strove ; 
The close-clutch'd hands still grasp the crimson'd 
mould. 
And lip and blacken'd brow their dying horrors hold. 



Dark triumph ! but it is not Murder's all : 
The blow awakes a sinful soul from sleep ; — 
Awakes to what ? More dread than knife and pall. 
That sacrifice, o'er which the angels weep ; 
And wild the shriek, which, rising from the deep, 
Will meet the murderer, should he dare to pray. 
Others, wife, offspring, the red quarry heap : 
They kill the brood the parent-bird who slay ; 
The life's life of near hearts with his is swept away. 



50 D E V T I N A L P E M S. 

VI. 

Doth not the murderer to himself a wrong 
Fell as his victim's ? When the deathly gloom 
Of his grim purpose shrouds him, and the throng 
Of fiends surround him, reeking from the tomb, — 
What death-sweats chill ! What fires of hell con- 
sume ! — 
The hour hath come ! Wild horrors ride his 

Lrain, — 
That hour, the murderer's and his victim's doom : 
'Tis blood, — all blood ! Blood falls like summer 
rain : 
One sleeps who ne'er will wake, — one ne'er will sleep 
again ! 



VII. 

As in a burial-vault, they grope the earth, 

United now, the murderer and his slain ; 

The spectre's chapless cheeks are wreathed with 

mirth. 
The while they join the blood-red bowl to drain : 



DEVOTIONAL rOE MS. 51 

Pillow'd cheek touching cheek, its bones are lain 
Beside him ; night nor day are they apart ; 
And sights and sounds, a thousand, rack his brain ; 
A passing cloud will chill, a leaflet start ; 
And he would die, but, 'neath its eye, he hath no 
heart ! 

VIII. 

Avenged so surely, — for earth will not hide 
The deed of blood, nor fire, nor wind, nor wave, 
Nor ev'n the torn heart of the homicide ; — 

^ Avenged so fearfully, — for o'er the grave 

Pvise Furies from whose wrath no rede can save : — 
Sure maniacs only, in their darkest mood, 
Such deed can purpose, or such doom can brave I 
No; gather'd were all Time's crime-lavish 'd blood, 

'Twould sweep around the earth, a red and rolling 
flood ! 

IX. 

Each vale has fatten'd, by the battle fed : 
Each stream run crimson'd through a warring land ; 
Each sea has fondled with its swelterino; dead, 
And cast wrecks not her own upon the strand ; 



52 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

The rock has redden 'd, and the desert sand. 
Earth owns no spot uncursed by Murder's reign : 
Senates it nurse ; schools guide its crimson'd hand ; 
While madden'd millions shout o'er millions slain, 
And Glory's chant rings o'er cliarr'd town and shriek- 
ing plain. 



Can the white hand of pure and holy Right 
Be in the hue of human slaughter dyed ? 
Can Piety a pretext find to smite, 
Making libation of the gash'd heart's tide ? 
What right to quench that flame — to heaven allied — 
Which earth can ne'er relume ? Could human deed 
Have drawn our Saviour to a homicide? 
Dread should the danger be, and dire the need, 
That asks one sacred life, — or bids a nation bleed. 



XI. 

Seldom such need excuseth either foe ; 
And never both. Of all earth's wars, how few 
Have for man's right or welfare struck a blow, 
Or gain'd a point ! What man has won is due 



DEVOTIONAL rOEMS. 53 

To peaceful virtues : War and its vile crew 
Establish only wrong. Force knows but Will, 
(Conscience, or code, or creed, it never knew ;) 
Its aim to glut dark passions, — crush and kill ; 
What pleaseth it, it doth ; and still is pleased with ill. 



XII. 

Peace is the chorded music of the sky, 
And godlike spirits' love; strife, the jar 
Of Nature chaos-smit, — th' ignoble joy 
Of brute and brutish men. The feast of war 
They seek — with vulture swoop and greed — afar. 
And gorge insatiate. Heroes ! what reck they 
Of crimson'd hearthstone and of outraged lar ? 
The weak, unweapon'd, (not the field and fray,) 
The cot, the cradle, couch, War's direst spoil purvey. 



XIII. 

And not alone by Murder's red right hand 

The task of War is wrought; for, on its path, — 

Staunch hounds, but silent, — Famine sweeps the 

land. 
With Plague, to snatch the offal left by Wrath. 



O-i DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

'Neath walls still tottering with the battle's scath, 
By the strown roadside, in cave, fen, or wold, 
(Where, clinging to the grim hope Misery hath. 
The helpless herd,) their carnival they hold : 
Death snuffs the air, and laughs o'er the corse-cover'i 
mould ! 



XIV. 

Can Virtue here her holy altar keep, 
Where Hate and Terror rule, by turn, the soul ? 
Where the dark passions of the heart's great deep 
Are broken up, in billowy wrath to roll, 
O'erleaping Reason's check, as mocks the mole 
Ocean upheaved by earthquake? Every ill, 
Rage, rapine, lust, — o'ertowering control, — 
The ruin'd heart with demon spirits fill : 
Virtue with Murder mate ! it never hath nor will ! 



XV. 

And ev'n Religion's never-dying day 
More feebly shines beneath War's red eclipse : 
How dare we hope that she on earth would stay 
To kiss the lava from his crater-lips ? 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 55 

Yet man lias claim'd that 'tis for God he dips 
His sacrilegious hand in brother's blood ! 
His corse-rear'd altar with th' oblation drips ; 
And his prayers rise while falls the vital flood : 
Deems he o'er such a scene The Dove, well pleased, 
will brood ? 

XVI. 

Civilization from War's reign recedes. 
Leaving lost cities the hyena's lair : 
Celestial Science, with her votaries, bleeds ; 
And Art expires, the gentle and the fair. 
And Freedom ! She hath dared, and yet can dare, 
To strike, — for God strikes with her ; and to die 
For her is rapture ; — for her life doth bear 
In it all life, all virtue, and all joy : 
'Tis Truth, 'tis Peace, 'tis God, — on earth as 'tis on 
high 1' 

XVII, 

A land whose vales "War dares not breathe upon; 
Where Hope and Joy toil cheerly, and Repose 
Dreads no awakener ruder than the sun ; 
Where Truth's life-fountain by each cottage flows 



56 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Free as the hill-side spi'ing; where Weakness knows 
No fear ; and Freedom and Religion rest 
Upon the arm of Peace ! What fiend the throes 
Of war would bring unto that tranquil breast ? 
For Gain or Glory curse a land so richly blest ? 



XVIII. 

Accurst the miscreant whose spider-care 
Weaves o'er a people's fate the web of war ! 
Too cold to pity, and too base to dare, 
He gloats o'er Murder's revel from afar : 
Selfish, impassive, 'tis his part to tar 
Men's passions on to crime ; till, axle-deep 
In human gore, they drive the conqueror's car, 
And call it Glory ! Can the monster sleep ? 
Mads he not, as hot waves of blood his couch 
o'erleap ? 



XIX. 

Still guiltier, baser, — see the Duel ape 
The strife of realms ! With ceremony due, 
His friends — his friends ! — the formal folly shape, 
And give it murder's form and murder's hue : 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 57 

They phrase it honour ! Honour never knew 
The idiot crime, but, wise and pure and brave, 
Is ever unto God and Duty true : 
'Tis Fashion's kw, — the breath of sot and knave :^ 
Fashion, the fool's God, frowns ; he dies its coward 
slave ! 



XX. 

'Tis guiltiest, — for Self-murder adds its guilt ; 
And Time and Thought and Sleep against it plead, - 
The gentle Sleep whose dreams, ere blood is spilt, 
Hear angels whisper, Dare not do this deed ! 
For 'tis not Passion bids the victim bleed ; 
And oft the murderer slays when loth to kill : 
Not erring Nature, Hate, nor Kage, nor Need, 
His Avretched plea : he goes, in conscious ill, 
Defying God and man, a felon's grave to fill. 



XXI. 

'Tis basest, — for not willingly he goes, 
That whipp'd and trembling thrall of sordid fear 
(Save when the dark life-gamester deftly throws 
The loaded dice of death ; — whose life's a sneer, 



58 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Whose wine is blood, whose banquet-board, the 

bier ; — 
The licensed bravo, with his heart of hate 
And eye of snake, who kills with jocund jeer, 
And lives to kill : Fiends on his triumphs wait, 
And own, abash'd, their lord and master, not their 
mate !) 



XXII. 

'Tis basest, — for not willingly he goes. 
But lash'd by fears that wisdom would deride ; 
Not fears of life nor law, of friends nor foes. 
Of conscience outraged, nor of virtuous pride : 
What then ? What can the driveller dread be- 
side? 
A sneer ! From whom ? Fools, with nor heart nor 

brain. 
Whose praise, as unto infamy allied, 
Ev'n he would shrink from with a just dis- 
dain ; 
And yet the craven bows, and basely wears their 
chain ! 



DEVOTIONAL FOEMS. 59 



xxiir. 



The voluntary madman dares not think : — 
From that dread gulf he turns, appall'd, away ; 
He dares not, standing on the dark grave's brink, 
And self-divorced from Heaven, he dares not 2^ray 
He asks no good man's blessing on that day ; 
But to the field, with guilty stealth, he hies ; 
Brute nerves suffice his brutal part to play ; 
As the fool dieth — should he fall — he dies ; 
Or, victor, (human all!) he, like a felon, flies! 



XXIV, 

How hath the mighty fall'n !'' His country's love, 
A blissful home, ev'n Virtue's honest scorn. 
All could not lift the hero's soul above 
A false and fatal shame. Well might he mourn 
His bride and babes, left stricken and forlorn. 
His cause deserted, and his country ; still 
He left the fame so nobly won and worn, 
Conscious and sad, the duellist's grave to fill : 
False honour's loud call drown'd the voice, — Thou 
shall not kill ! 



GO DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



XXV, 



Thus sank the star that from our country's brow 
Beam'cl with immortal radiance ! And the gain. 
What was it, of his cold, man-hating foe ? 
He fled from infamy, — a wandering Cain ; 
His life a torture, and his name a stain ! 
When will true Honour's sons to teach unite 
That coward Wrong alone incurs disdain ; 
That only deeds which Heaven approves are bright ; 
TJiat Courage hides with Truth, and Honour lives in 
Eight ! 



gttou slalt not tommft a-trulttrj. 



I. 



Young, holy Love ! It riseth o'er the heart, 
Like morn's flush'd glory o'er a vernal sky; 
And from its light all things profane depart. 
Leaving thoughts pure and aspirations high ; 
The hallowing influence of Divinity ! 
Its heart-founts, clear as rills in Eden bowers, 
Euffled alone by Joy's low quivering sigh. 
Wake, as they lave their Paradise of flowers. 
Weird melodies, else mute, in this wild world of 
ours. 

61 



62 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

II. 

Each other's, and all God's ! The sacred vow 
Blends souls, like meeting streams or mingling rays; 
And lapsing life glides by with music's flow, 
Till age, like moonlight, silvers o'er their days. 
God on their holy home His blessing lays : 
And when the bow that o'er their youth was bent — 
The mingled glory of their souls — decays, 
Its hues are with immortal radiance blent ; 
They melt, — but 'tis in light: Heaven claims the love 
it lent ! 



III. 

The unholiest spirit from the pit of night 
Is that, with loathly leer and loosen'd zone. 
Whose shameless wiles the wanton will invite ; 
The reek of rotten hearts and passion prone. 
Whose carrion breath blasts wheresoe'er 'tis blown. 
Tortured with flames that sear, but cannot sate ; 
True love unknowing, by true love unknown ; 
Loathing its ulcer 'd self and monster mate ; 
It rots in charnel heats, or withers in horrid hate. 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 63 



IV. 



That satyr-sin casts, on the wretch undone, 
The muck of each imbruting vice of clay ; 
Till he is buried from the blessed sun. 
And, worm-like, works in earth his blinded way. 
It knows no joy, no truth, no trust, no stay ; 
Its smiles are horror, and its pleasures weep : 
From sin to sin it changes with the day ; 
From woe to woe it stumbles down the steep ; 
From hell to hell it sinks, and finds the lowest deep 



fSffidU £talt not sUal. 



I. 



The Law which walls man's labour and its fruit 
Is from on High ; and holy its design : — 
To guard the means of life, and the pursuit 
Of aims that lift our nature, and refine. 
"Without the Eight that shelters Mine and Thine, 
Famine would reign, earth's lord : for who would 

toil? 
Ko wheaten sheafs would nod, no ploughshares 

shine ; 
And — for men murder where they will not moil — 
Rapine would rage, and "Want the weaker Want 

despoil.^ 

64 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 65 

II. 

Hence o'er man's havings stretches God's high hand, 
Not to exalt Wealth, but to shield alone ; 
And hence was utter'd the divine command, 
Thou shalt not steal ! in Sinai's thunder-tone : 
All human codes the heavenly statute own, 
Branding the wrong, in every state and clime, 
As vilest of the deeds to baseness known, 
The hate of Goodness, and the scorn of Time ; 
And, great the spoil and spoiler, greater still the 
crime. 



Ill, 

Where is this Sin ? Alas ! where is it not ^ 
It walks the earth in purple and in gold : 
To grace the palace, oft it spurns the cot ; 
It mates the mighty, and it sways the bold. 
He, — let the rough truth be as roughly told,- 
He who, by force, by agency, or art. 
Or dares or deigns to seize or win and hold 
What is another's, plays the filcher's part. 
And is a thief! — howe'er he from the title start. 



66 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

IV. 

What is the hero, — what his harpy band, — 
Who burst into a sleeping reahii, and raise 
The Conqueror's robber-title o'er the land ? 
'Tis Honour's quarrel ! — No ; for he who slays 
His foe in honour, rifling hand ne'er lays 
Upon the fall'n. The bandit band are strong, 
And make the Eight ; while Battle's lurid blaze 
Sheds a false glare Crime's sordid path along, 
The small thief, 'neath the lash, shrieks for the self- 
same wrong ! 



The spoils of war, of desolated plain. 
Of plundered city, and of besom'd sea, — 
Manlier or nobler are they, from the stain 
Of blood, than simple Felony's would be ? 
Is the crime less, that pension'd priests agree 
To chaunt Te Deums, wdiose loud lauds arise 
Ev'n with the shrieks of rack'd humanity, 
The famisli'd mother's prayers, her infant's cries ? 
Prelate or Victim, which, hath audience with the 
skies ? 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



VI. 



Such is earth's glory ! How much hath its spell, 
A word that wilders, cost us ! On the pall 
Of the world's Hope, the spangle glitters well. 
Guilt, dwarf 'd, men spurn; a monster grown, they 

fall 
And worship it, although with gore and gall 
It drug their cup : Is't not the allegiant tie 
Binding a lost world in its dark king's thrall ? 
From their pet wolf the flock one moment fly. 
Then turn, and stand to gaze, to tremble, and to die ! 



VII. 

But Wrong hath subtler arts, — arts not unknown 
To the false warders of the public weal. 
Who hold their law an engine all their own. 
By which earth's lords dull Labour's birthright steal ; 
Deftly t' extort, so that the subject feel 
No wound, (as vampire-bats the sleeper fan. 
And drain his life-blood,) till the nation reel. 
Sinking, with feeble wail, tax-crush'd and wan : 
Such the dark arts by which man makes a drudge of 
man. 



68 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

VIII. 

By many a deep device of ancient wrong, 
State tyranny exacts its steady spoil ; 
And thus the robber few enslave the throng, 
And thus Craft triumphs while its victims toil. 
Slaves of the mill and mine, the sea and soil, — 
Millions, — whose dungeon'd natures see no light ; 
Their souls, forever crush'd, know no recoil ; 
Hope looks not in upon their lifelong night : 
Alas for them, — and those who rob them of their 
Eight ! 



IX. 

Thou shalt not steal : deem they this law unbroken. 
Who, shrinking from the malefactor's fate. 
Are fair of face and fame, and fairly spoken. 
Yet spare no subtle craft, no vantage bate, 
To win, by thrift unblest, a high estate ? 
Such Traffic's arts, perverted, pert, and sly ; 
Th' o'erreaching skill, with gainful fraud elate ; 
The tricksy token, and the silent lie ; 
The low lie of the heart, — it echoes loud on hia-h ! 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 60 



Nor less condemn'cl the Wrong of rasher mood : 
The shpshod Probity, whose careless hand 
Flings earnings not its own upon the flood 
Of reckless risk, and laughs to see it strand : 
The fool who dreams his gold-compelling wand 
Must call up worlds ; the gamester of the mart ; 
The Trust-betrayer; and the bold-brow'd band, 
Valiant in others' losses : theirs the art 
Of noble theft : — they spurn the paltry pilferer's part ! 



XI. 

Fraud may blind Ignorance, and Success may praise ; 

Hypocrisy — the shame of Satan's train — 

May charities endow, and temples raise : 

"God sees!" the Fraud is known, the Falsehood 

vain. 
But Justice, ev'n on earth, asserts her reign : 
Guilt's wealth is curst ; its triumph is a doom ; 
A conscience scorpion-stung, the world's disdain, 
A life of torture, and a death of gloom, 
But antedate the fate that waits beyond the tomb ! - 



70 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

XII. 

The Lord upliolds the righteous and the just : 
The Honest Man — his rule eternal Eight, 
His truth his treasure, and his God his trust — 
Treads earth with dauntless port and brow of light. 
No ill can crush his soul, no peril fright. 
Who does to others as to Self. How blest 
Each tranquil day ! how angel- watch'd each night ! 
Life sunlike passeth ; death is Duty's rest ; 
Loved, honour'd, wept, he sleeps on his Redeemer's 
breast. 



®al«uuun 



2^tou sfjalt not ttar false Initntss against ti)D ntiatiour. 



The blessed Truth, God-born and God-beloved ! 

That ever hath lived, lives for evermore ! 

High as the heaven where loftiest wings have 

roved ; 
Pure as the streams of Living Love that pour 
Around the Throne that Seraphim adore ; 
Lovely beyond angelic Thought to trace; 
The bride whose smile, on th' empyrean shore, 
Will bless the blessed, with still growing grace ! 
The atmosphere of Heaven ! The melody of Space ! 



72 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

II. 

To live and love God's trutli ; to lift tlie soul 
High, and still higher, to her blest abode ; 
To feel her fires along the spirit roll, 
As if we were not kindred with the clod, 
But lapp'd in light anear the throne of God ; — 
Oh, this were rapture, this were life indeed ! 
Come earth's worst sorrows, I would kiss the rod, 
And smile, if Truth were with me in my need, — 
Ay, smile, though bigot wrong should bid me burn or 
bleed 



III. 

Falsehood ! the shade forever execrated. 
That lifts its scarr'd front 'twixt the blessed light 
And the lost earth ! the hideous and the hated ! 
The opposite of all things good and bright. 
Or strong and lasting ! shedding bale and blight 
On Beauty, Joy, and Hope ! His pestilent breath 
Darken'd earth's primal promise ; day made night ; 
Wither'd on her young brow the bridal wreath ; 
Loaded her winds with groans, and heap'd her vales 
with death ! 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 73 



IV. 



Its vapour struggletli up from tortured hell, 
As, from cleft rocks, in the oracles of old, 
Eose fiery fumes, which breathed, the priestess fell 
Into strange madness, and in howlings told 
Secrets accurst, fiends only could unfold : 
To madden and mislead, thus, from the deep 
The fatal cloud o'er earth is raised and roll'd, — 
Falsehood and Death — his first-born — wildly sweep 
The world; and, side by side, their ripen'd harvest 
reap. 



Falsehood is sin, and always sin ; its sire 
Sathan, of its dark home and birthplace King : 
Ev'n seeming harmless, it still hides the fire 
Of that dread home. The adder may not sting ; 
Bat who will fondle with the fearful thing? 
An untruth sinless is an adder fair. 
Angels from Falsehood fly, with frighted wing : 
The liar's bosom is Crime's natural lair ; 
It lurks, perhaps, unseen, — the Judge will find it 
there ! 

10 



74 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

VI. 

Esteem not words as breath, — to be contemn'd : 
For you shall be — so spake th' Almighty Son — 
By words acquitted, or by words condemn'd : 
The false word spoken is an evil done ; 
And, 'gainst your neighbour, is a war begun. 
Fair Fame is "Wealth, — is Power, to aid and bless ; 
'Tis Happiness, — 'tis Love and Friendship won; 
A robber he who mars or makes it less, 
Life's wine pours forth, and leaves the vase an empti- 
ness .' 



VII. 

Good name to man is odour to the rose. 
Air to the earth, the sun unto the day : 
Without it, life nor hope, nor beauty, knows, 
But sinks a clod, — a curse, — a castaway. 
To work that woe, who dares, and dares tojpray'? 
To poison life's pure spring ; from a fair fame. 
By patient virtue rear'd, to wrench the stay ? 
And leave him, 'mid the ruins of a name, 
In icy exile lost, the solitude of shame ? 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 75 

VIII. 

How may that gift that marks man from the brute, 
Perverted, sink him ev'n the brute below ! 
'Twere well if adder hearts were deaf and mute 
As adders, for their venom works more woe 
Than serpent fold or fang. Like winds that blow, 
Death-freighted, o'er the desert, is the breath 
Of Calumny; its baleful light the glow 
Of meteors in grave-vaults, — where, seen beneath 
Their gleam, are things of fear, of foulness, and of 
death. 



IX. 

Malice of misbegotten Calumny 
. The dragon dam ; and poison is her food ; 
Till from her horrid lips it oozes free, 
As from the late-gorged tiger's jaws the blood. 
Her sister, Envy, sickens at the good. 
And, like all things of rapine, breathes the light 
With Evil's instinct ; still intent to brood 
On schemes, the excellent she hates, to blight. 
To sink the good and blest to noisomeness and 
night. 



76 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 



X. 



The cold man-hater, only Falsehood's friend, — 
No partial foe, — holds all his kind as prey ; 
No baleful breath his carrion heart can send 
Forth to the sky, that does not blot the day ! 
O'er hopes and hearts ho, sweltering, trails his way, 
Each touch a death. His soul secretes the lie 
As snakes their venom : instinct bids hira slay ! 
The noblest, fairest, perish ! Ask you why ? 
His soul exudes, — it drops, — and where it dro})S they 
die! 



XI. 

As guilty, though less grave, his ribald art 
Who stains in merriment and stabs in jest, 
Reaching, with ruthless glee, his victim's heart :— 
So the dark Roman^ lent his feasts a zest 
By sportive slaughter of Rome's first and best. 
They who thus quench life's life, its all of worth, 
Oh, can they dream the w^rithing heart's unrest 
Of the torn victim trampled thus to earth ? 
An age's misery for a moment's mocking mirth 



SONNETS ON THE LORD'S PEAYER. 



in ns go sprriiilq to prati liffarf tljf lorii. 

Zech. viii. 21. 



^mv iosittr. 



/ IV in be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and 
daiifihters, saith the Lord Almighty. 2 CoB. vi. 18. 



Our Fathee ! Holiest name, first, fondest, best ! 

Sweet is the murmur'd music of the vow 

When young Love's kiss first prints the maiden's 
brow ; 
But sweeter to a father's yearning breast 

His blue-eyed boy's soft prattle. This is love ! 
Pare as the streamlets that distil through moun- 
tains, 
And drop, in diamonds, in their cavern'd fountains ; 

Changeless, and true all earthly truth above. 



80 D E \" T 1 N A L POEMS. 

iVnd sueli is Thine ! For whom ? For all, — ev'n me 
Thou, to whom all that is which sight can reach 
Is but a sand-grain on the ocean-beach 

Of being ! Down, my soul : it cannot be ! 

But He hath said ! Up, soul, unto His throne ! 

Father, — " Our Father," — save and bless Thine own ! 



11. 



(fjui t$ m (^m\\$. 



Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless 
thy 'people. Deut. xxvi. 15. 



Who art in heaven ! Thou know'st nor mete nor 
bound. 

Thy presence is existence. 'Neath Thine eye, 

Systems spring forth, revolve, and shine, — and 
die; 
Ev'n as to us, within their little round, 
The bright sands in the eddying hill-side spring 

Sparkle and pass forever down the stream. 

Slow-wheeling Saturn, of the misty beam. 
Circles but atoms with his mighty wing ; 



11 



81 



82 D E V T I N A L P E M S. 

And bright-eyed Sirius, but a sentry, glows 

Upon the confines of infinity. 

AVhere Thou art not, ev'n Nothing cannot be ! 
Where Thy smile is, is Heaven ; where not, — all 

woes, 
Sin's chaos and its gloom. Grant Thy smile be 
My light of life to guide me up to Thee ! 



III. 



^anrtifiretuv Wimxm tuum. 



Holy and reverend is his name. 
Ps. cxi. 9. 



Hallowed be Thy name ! In every clime. 

'Neath every sky ! Or in this smiling land, 

Where Vice, bold-brow'd, and Craft, walk hand in 
hand, 
And varnish'd Seeming gives a grace to Crime ; 
Or in the howling wild, or on the plain, 

Where Pagans tremble at their rough-hewn goii ; 

Wherever voice hath spoke, or foot hath trod ; 
Sacred Thy name ! The skeptic, wild and vain ; 

S3 



84 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Eoused from his rosy joys, the Osmanlite; 

The laughing Ethiop, and the dusk Hindoo ; 

Thy sons of every creed, of every hue ; 
Praise Thee ! Nor earth alone. Each star of night, 
Join in the choir ! till Heaven and Earth acclaim, 
Still, and forever, Hallowed be Thy name ! 



IV. 



fjettiat g^guum tuum. 



Thy throne, God, is for- ever mid ever: the scej^lre of tliij 
kingdom is a right sceptre. Ps. xlv. (). 



Thy kingdom come! Speed, angel wings, that 
time! 
Then known no more the guile of gain, the leer 
Of lewdness, frowning power, or pallid fear, 

The shriek of suffering, or the howl of crime ! 

All will be Thine,— all blest ! Thy kingdom come ! 
Then in Thy arms the sinless earth will rest, 
As smiles the infant on its mother's breast ; 

The dripping bayonet and the kindling drum 

S 85 



86 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Unknown, — for not a foe; the thong unknown, — 
For not a slave ; the cells o'er which Despair 
Flaps his black wing, and fans the sigh-swoll'n 
air. 

Deserted ! Night will pass, and hear no groan : 

Glad Day look down, nor see nor guilt nor guile ; 

And all that Thou hast made reflect Thy smile I 



V. 






Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God : thy spirit is 
good; lead me into the land of uprightness. Ps. cxliii. 10. 



Thy will be done on earth, as 'tis in heaven ! 
That will whicli chords the music-moving spheres 
With harmonies unheard by mortal ears ; 

And, losing which, our orb is jarr'd and riven. 

Ours a crush'd harp ! Its strings by tempests 
shaken ; 
Swept by the hand of sin, its guilty tones 
Startle the spheres with discords and with groans ; 

By virtue, peace, hope, — all but Thee, — forsaken ! 

87 



88 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Oh, be its chords restrung ! Thy will be clone ! 
Mysterious law ! Our griefs approve that will : 
For, as shades haunt the night, grief follows ill 

And bliss tends virtue, as the day the sun. 

Homage on earth, as 'tis on high, be given ; 

For when Thv will is done, then earth is heaven ! 



VI. 



^umm no,sitr«m (juotidinnum da mh\$ ItadU. 



lie that ivalketh righteously, . . . bread shall be given him. 
IsA. xxxiii. 15, 16. 



Give us this day our daily bread ! Thou 
art 

Lord of the harvest. Thou hast taught the 
song 

Sung by the rill, the grassy vale along ; 
And 'tis Thy smile, when Summer's zephyrs start. 
That makes the wavy wheat a sea of gold ! 

Give me to share Thy boon ! No miser hoard 

I crave; no splendour; no Apician board : 
Freedom, and faith, and food,— and all is told : 

12 89 



90 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

I ask no more. But spare my brethren ! They 
Now beg, in vain, to toil; and cannot save 
Their wan-eyed loved ones, sinking to the grave. 

Give them their daily bread ! How many pray, 

Alas, in vain, for food ! Be Famine fed ; 

And give us, Lord, this day, our daily bread. 



VII. 






Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. 
Luke vi. 37. 



Forgive our trespasses, as we forgive 

Those who against us trespass! Though we 

take 
Life, blessings, promised heavens, from Thee, we 
make 

Life a long war 'gainst Him in whom we live ! 

Pure once; now like the Cities of the Plain, 
A bitter sea of death and darkness rolls 
Its heavy waves above our buried souls. 

Yet wilt Thou raise us to the light again, 

91 



92 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

"Worms as we are, if we forgive the worm 

That grovels in our way. How light the cost, 
And yet how hard the task ! For we are lost 

In sin. Do Thou my soul uphold and form! 

Bankrupt and lost to all but hope and Thee ; 

Teach me to pardon; and, oh, pardon me ! 



VIII. 



C^t \u m$ Mmm itt S^^tttiitiaw^m. 



Because thou hast liept the word of my patience, I also will 
keep thee from the hour of temptation. Eev. iii. 10. 



Lead us not in temptation ! The earth's best 
Find but in flight their safety; and the wise 
Shun, with considerate steps, its basilisk eyes. 

Save us from Pleasure with the heaving breast 

And unbound zone; from Flattery's honey 'd tongue; 
Avarice, with golden palm and icy heart ; 
Ambition's marble smile and earthy art ; 

The rosy cup where aspic death is hung ! 

93 



94 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Better the meal of pulse and bed of stone, 

And the calm safety of the anchorite, 

Than aught that life can give of wild and 
bright ; 
Be Thou my joy, my hope, ray strength, alone ; 
Save from the tempter. Should he woo to ill, 
Be Thou my rock, my shield, my safety, still ! 



IX. 



^ed liljera nasi aft xiU piala. 



God delivereth and reseueth, and he worketh signs and tvon- 
ders in heaven and in earth. Dan. vi. 27. 



Deliver us from evil ! Hapless race ! 

Our life a shadow, and our walk a dream ; 

Our gloom a fate, our joy a fitful gleam ; 
Where is our hope but Thee ! Oh, give us grace 
To win Thy favour ! Save from loud - voiced 
Wrong 

And creeping Craft. Save from the hate of foes ; 

The treachery of friends ; the many woes 
Which to the clash of man with man belong ! 

95 



96 DEVOTIONAL FOE MS. 

Save those I love from want, from sickness, pain ! 

And — spared that pang of pangs — oh, let me 
die 

Before for them a tear-drop fills my eye ; 
And, dying, let me hope to meet again ! 
Oh, save me from myself ! Make me and mine, 
In life and spirit, ever, only Thine ! 



X. 



Citlia tuwm t^i ^t^mnXf tt ^pUwim, tt Gloria 
in iSfrula. g^men. 



Thine, Lord, is the greatness, and the 'power, and the glory, 
and the victory, and the majesty ; for all that is in the heaven and 
in the earth is thine ; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art 
exalted as head above all. 1 Chron. xxix. 11. 



Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory ! 
Thine, 
A Kingdom based on past eternity. 
So vast, the ponderous thought — could such thought 
be— 
Would crush the mind ! A Power that wills should 
shine 

13 97 



98 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

A million worlds ; they shine : should die ; they die ! 
A Glory to the which the sun is dim, 
And from whose radiance ev'n the seraphim, 

Heaven-born, must veil the brow and shade the eye ! 

And these are Thine forever ! Fearful word, 
To us, the beings of a world of graves 
And minutes ! Yet Thy covenant promise saves : 

Our trust is in Thee, Father, Saviour, Lord ! 

Holy, thrice holy. Thou ! Forever, then. 

Be Kingdom, Power, and Glory Thine. Amen. 



BIBLE BREATHINGS. 



I^jucdidu^* 



The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be 
the name of the Lord. Job i. 21. 

Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be i)i 
the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield 
no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall 
be no herd in the stalls : yet Twill rejoice in the Lord, Twill joy 
in the God of my salvation. Hab. iii. 17, 18. 



Blessed be Thy name forever, 

God of mercy, God of might ! 
Of all gracious gifts the Giver, 

Of all life the Lord and Light ! 
Bless Thee, for the rest of even ; 

Bless Thee, for the joy of day; 
Peace on earth, and hope of heaven ; — 

Blessed ever, — blessed aye ! 

101 



102 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Not for these alone, Father ! 

Bless Thee, not for joys alone ; 
For the griefs that round me gather. 

For ray misery and my moan ! 
Bless Thee, with a bow'd heart's blessing, 

For the good that seems the ill ; 
Whether chastening or caressinsr, 

Bless Thee, Father, bless Thee still ! 



Bless Thee, for th' awakening sorrow, 

Weeping o'er the early dead ; 
Tearful night and mournful morrow, 

Sinking heart and achino; head ! 
Bless Thee, Lord ! for Thou dost love me. 

When with sickness Thou dost smite ; 
Bless Thee, for the clouds above me, — 

'Tis Thy mercy makes them bright. 



Blest the tempest o'er me sweeping : 
For o'er Thee the storm hath swept ! 

Blest my weariness and weeping : 
Let me weep, — for Thou hast wept ! 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 103 

Bless Thee ! every grief's a token, 

Calling me to Thee away : 
Break, my heart ! for His was broken : 

Bless Thee ever, bless Thee aye ! 



Bless Thee, for the soul that yearneth 

With a lowly love for Thee ! 
Bless Thee, for the zeal which burneth, 

Thine, in life and death, to be ! 
Bless Thee, for the life, that liveth, 

Vapor-like, to pass away ! 
Bless Thee, for the death, that giveth 

Life to bless Thee, Lord, for aye ! 



gcath the gclivcta 



Lord, make me to knoic mine end, and the measure of my 
days, what it is; that I may know how frail lam. Behold, thou 
hast made my days as a handbreadth; and mine age is as 
nothing before thee : verily every man at his best estate is altogether 
vanity. Ps. xxxix. 4, 5. 



Pale, trembling watcher, by the dark grave's brink, 
Why dost thou falter? Wherefore shouldst thou 

shrink ? 
Death is no foe ; and though — still, stealthy, near — 
His creeping footstep breaks upon thine ear. 
Why shouldst thou weep? With vain regrets away ! 
They cannot add to lapsing life a day. 
Sorrow and fear, themselves the shades of death, 
Hollow the cheek and check the struggling breath : 

104 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 105 

Thus the frail snow-wreath, in the wintry ray, 
Shrinks from the sun, and weeps itself away. 
How vain the sordid fear, the miser skill, 
That o'er life's treasured fragments trembles still, — 
Trembles and weeps, to mark how fast decays 
The wretched remnant of his tortured days. 

Death cannot come unless it come from High;^ 
He mocks his God who meets it with a sigh. 
Ungrateful, too ! Life is a generous boon. 
Which claim'd to-morrow, is not claim'd too soon. 
'Tis Heaven's, not ours, — the lease of a domain ; 
And is it well, when claim'd by Heaven again. 
To yield reluctant our departing breath, 
And meet, with moody tears, God's steward. Death ? 

When earth was cursed, and life a dream was made. 
Where crime dogs crime, and shade still follows 

shade. 
Death would have been the worshipp'd of the land. 
And man had perish 'd by his own right hand : 
But, from our hearts to drive this fell despair. 
The instinct dread of death was planted there. 
Now, when relenting nature, sent to save. 
Opens to woe-worn man the gentle grave, 

14 



106 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

And points him there, his griefs and perils past, 

A refuge and a resting-phice, at last ; 

What hopes, what joys, should swell his grateful 

breast, 
To greet the couch that yields unbroken rest !" 
There let him sleep ! There all of us may sleep. 
Why o'er his tranquil pillow should we weep ? 
A sunlit mind, soul generous, bland, and brave ; 
My twinn'd heart slumbers in his distant grave ! 
Yet, o'er the blest and honour'd, why repine ? 
His is the cradled calm, — the tempest mine/^ 
Want cannot reach him, slander cannot harm ; 
No spurn can wound him, and no power alarm ; 
No dreams of ill can haunt, no fate affright. 
No foe can wrong him, and no friend can slight. 
Sleep I thou whom ill can never more betide ! 
Sleep on ! would I were resting by thy side ! 

Why wouldst thou live? For self? Behold the 
past! 
Such is the future. AVouldst thou have it last ? 
Like Arctic mountains, on whose hoary brow 
Each winter adds its growing weight of snow. 
Life numbers seasons by increasing cares. 
And, year by year, a heavier burthen bears. 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 107 

But for thy friend, tliou'lt welcome every woe ? 
A day, perchance, will make that friend thy foe. 
Or for thy child ? Live ; and his prayers may be, 
That death free thee from ill, — and him fi'om thee !^ 
Or for thy country ? Or thy race ? Away ! 
Sneers, scoffs, and wrongs, thy idle pains repay. 

Death comes too soon, 'tis said. The wise and 
brave 
No season deem too early for the grave ;^ 
In youth, mid-life, and age, the same our doom : 
The best has fled ; the worst has yet to come. 
The grave alone ne'er changes. On its breast, 
And there alone, we know untroubled rest ;*' 
Its kindness never wavers, wanes, decays : 
Death is the only friend that ne'er betrays. 

Man fears not age, yet shrinks from death. He 
knows 
That age is weariness, and death repose; 
Yet, from a coward fear,'' he trembling prays 
To be accursed with length of wretched days. 
To bear about a frame, convulsed with pains. 
Whose watery blood scarce swells its frigid veins ; 



108 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Yet cling, with palsied grasp, to torture still. 
And deem death comes too soon, come when it 
will! 

Death cannot sin. Each hour boasts now its 

crime ; 
And vice and folly mark the pace of time. 
How few improve with years ! Ev'n from our birth. 
Our roots strike deeper in the sordid earth. 
The grave ! nor guilt nor passion haunts that 

shore : 
We sleep, untempted, there; and "sin no more."* 

Is Death a stranger to thee ? Look abroad ! 
'Tis on all life, — the signet-mark of God ! ^ 
Creation's pale-eyed offspring, and its heir, 
"Wherever matter is, lo ! death is there ! 
We gaze around, and see but death ; we tread. 
And every step reverberates o'er the dead ! 

Death, in thy boyhood, gamboll'd at thy side ; 
Was with thee still in manhood's strength and 

pride ; 
Mix'd with thy toils and revels, joy and woe ; 
And wouldst thou meet him as a stranger now ? 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 109 

Mysterious minister ! whose gentle sway- 
Draws us from grief and gloom and guilt away ; 
May thy dread summons, whensoe'er 'tis sent, 
Meet the calm courage of a life well spent ; 
Take, without struggle, our expiring breath. 
And g:\ve that better life that knows no death ! 



®lte ^itsst ^hadout^. 



Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright ; for the end of 
that man is peace. Ps. xxxvii. 37. 

Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be 
like his. Numb, xxiii. 10. 



When around the couch, long tended, 
Heavier shadows settle down ; 

And the zephyr comes unwilling, 
And the sunlight seems to frown ; 

Pain's familiar sense is duller ; 

And the sick heart's feeble flow, 
Like a caged bird, faint and frighted, 

Seems to flutter to and fro ; 

110 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. HI 

"When pale shadows troop perpetual 

O'er the half-closed, heavy eye ; 
And a great Thought, dim and dreadful, 

Ever whispers, — Thou must die! 

Whispers lone, and low, and solemn, 

Yet it filleth all the sky ; 
'Tis the surge of Time's far ocean, 

And its anthem, — Thou must die! 

Then, when earthly hope is ashes ; 

Then, when earthly aid is dust; 
If the Saviour be our portion. 

Faith and Grace our stay and trust ; 

Let the worn heart throb to slumber 
With a sleep that ne'er shall wake : 

Let the surge-like voices whisper : 
Angel hymns shall o'er them break ! 

For the orb, to us declining. 

Dawns within a brighter sphere ; 
And the soul, star-born in Heaven, 

Leaves a lingering glory here ! 



§ivthda\j 6vtrtingsi» 



Ihty unto day utter eth speech, and night unto nir/ht shoiocth 
knowledge. Ps. xix. 2. 



Past and lost the lightsome childhood, 
Past the fair and frolic May ; 

As the red leaves strew the wildwood, 
Time's sere foliage strews our way. 

Every day and every hour, 
Kindled from the Life above, 

Is a miracle of power. 
Is a miracle of love. 

112 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 113 

That is not our mornincr natal 

O 

Which has given us to earth, 
With its phantoms false and fatal : 
Life crowns but the spirit- birth. 

Suns that perish cannot measure 

Spirit-life's eternal day : 
Earthly pain and earthly pleasure, 

What, unto its bliss, are they ? 

May that life, the rich and real, 

Blest and blessing, still be thine ; 
Then, earth's brief and dark ideal 

Will, with deathless radiance, shine. 

Not for sin, and not for sorrow. 

Do God's worlds of glory shine; 
Diamonds on the brow of morrow, 

Lo, they beam with joy divine ! 

May thy years, revolving duly, 

Thus in Duty's orbit move ; 
Serving trustingly and truly. 

Shining still with joy and love. 

15 



114 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Be each day a holy Birthday, 
Life that fadeth not away ; 

Day that dies not with the earth-day, 
God that life, and Heaven that day ! 



kim'^ Pjlpocvitt 



W7io art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall 
die, and of the son of man ivhich shall be made as grass? 

ISA. li. 12. 
Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words, 
of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed. 

Mark viii. 38. 



Who is the basest of tlie sons of men ? 

The wretch who hides within his quivering heart 

The fear of God, lest ribald fools should smile : 

Who steals the livery of vice, and feigns 

Sins uncommitted, or — committed — loathed ; 

Who mocks with writhing mirth and falter'd speech, 

The Awful and iiugust, to court the praise 

Of those who, hardier in their guilt, despise him. 

11.5 



116 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

The youthful dotard labours to efface 
The heavenly teachings of his happier days : 
They will not out ! Ev'n mid the revel shout, 
He hears the whisper of his mother's prayers, 
And shrinks and shudders. With a fainting heart, 
He forces hack the tide of holier thoughts. 
And swaggers with the braggart brow of Sin. 
He drinks, — the gorge uprising to the cup ; 
He lauo;hs, — the echo seems the mirth of fiends ; 
His ashy lip blasphemes, — with phrase uncouth, 
Startling his tempters with unwonted crime. 
The fluttering zone of Pleasure he enclasps, — 
But, at his touch, a skeleton horror glares. 
Loathsome in sin and noisome with the grave. 

That time, should voices, once revered, recall 
His torn soul from the tyranny of Sin, 
AVith eyes, he sees not, — save the mocker's smile ; 
With ears, he hears not, — save the idiot's sneer ; 
And, trampling out his soul, he rushes on, — 
Outmocks the mocking, and outdares the damn'd ! 

Now, what is he, who, to avert a sneer, 
Grovels thus 'neath contempt ? He acts a part, 
A guilty part, — but still a counterfeit. 



DEVOTIONAL TOEMS. 117 

He hides himself, and is not what he seems : 

His tortured conscience gives his life the lie. 

The sot whose word — a feather which a flaw 

Blows to and fro — is falsehood's synonym ; 

The prating dolt, whose tongue mocks truth, as doth 

The summer rill the echo, never hush'd, 

And never heeded, is not more despised : 

In word and deed, earth's basest shame, — a liar ! 

Nor this the worst; for Fear is Falsehood's father. 

His aspen soul with childish terror shakes 

In the vain breath of every knave and fool ; 

And, daunted by a sneer, the trembling churl 

Surrenders conscience, duty, manhood, God ; 

And crawls, the spurner's sport, a jellied craven! 



Liar and coward ! Such the stuff from which 
Fiends shape the hypocrite. But surely he — 
The mocking maniac, wearing Satan's badge 
As conquerors their crowns — earns not the name. 
A hypocrite ! AVhy, Shame and Sin and Death 
Are woo'd and won, to shun that dread reproach. 
Yet such is he ; the fiends will hail him thus : 
The basest, blackest, guiltiest hypocrite ! 



118 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

But not to God ! He is too proud to bow, 
Before the world, unto the King of Heaven : 
The insect shames to own th' Omnipotent I 
But one there is he does not bhish to pay 
The hollow homage of hypocrisy, 
A feigned fealty, and a felon faith. 
In the world's eye he stands, — Sin's traitor slave,- 
To falsehood false, — a hypocrite to Satan. 



^ flea Ux the f ev^ecutov. 



Fray for those who despitefuUy use you (md persecute you. 
Matthew, v. 44. 



Forgive tli' ungentle hand upraised to smite us ; 

Forgive tlie harder heart and harsher tongue ! 
Let not Thy wrathful retribution right us ; 

Nor add our brethren's sufferings to our wrong ! 

Sin's wintry reign, benumbing and benighting, 

Hath chill'd their hearts ; oh, warm them with Thy 
love I 

Forgive ! their wrongs to us in water writing, 
Lost be the record in the light above ! 



120 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Forgive ! for we, alas, too oft offending. 
Are pimish'd justly, suffer when we may; 

Forgive ! Thy grace on them, on us, descending. 
Turn from our wandering souls Thy wrath away ! 

Forgive ! for, swept by passion, sway'd by error. 
Unaided man is sin's enshackled slave; 

His life a tortured dream of tears and terror ; — 
Lost without Thee, oh, pity, pardon, save ! 

Forgive ! That word a treasure and a token. 
Our sins to cancel and our souls renew : 

Forgive, Lord ! for Calvary heard it spoken : 
'^Forgive them, for they knoiv not what they do !" 



giditut. 



To make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for 
iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up 
the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the 7nost Holy. 

Dan. ix. 24. 



"Where is the King?" Thus spake the sages, 

Seeking the Saviour from afar: 
"The Christ,— the God,— the Eock of Ages,— 

Who hither led us with His star?" 

" Where is the King ?" But, star-forsaken, 
They search the palace-halls in vain ; 

That Star of Hope, its beams were breaking 
O'er a low hut on Bethlehem's plain. 

16 121 



122 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

They saw, — rejoiced, — and knelt before Him : 
Nor was it strange the sages bow'd ; 

For glory from God's throne shone o'er Him, 
And angel anthems hymn'd aloud. 

'' To God be glory !" Spirit voices. 

Attuned on high, now thrill'd the earth ; 

" And peace to man !" thus Heaven rejoices 
Over the Saviour's humble birth. 

Joy ! for our orb's eclipse is over ! 

Joy ! earth again breathes God's own breath, 
With Faith around and Love above her, 

Hope to the hopeless, life to death ! 



®k §tmUtl 



I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came 
unto me. Matt. xxv. 36. 

These things saith the Son of God: I know thy works, and 
charity, and service, and faith, and patience. Rev. ii. 18, 19. 



"' Charity never failetli." Come with me 
Unto death's chosen temple. Misery holds 
His skeleton orgies here. Couch answers couch 
With the death-rattle. Pale despair clings close 
To the cold breast that knows no other friend. 
And yet the heaven-wing'd faith that hopeth all 

things, 
Is bolder here than in a palace. See 
Death's angel minis trant ; for God can fling 

123 



124 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

O'er the pure heart that which makes earth a 

heaven, — 
Plucks j^earls from life's dark depths, — and from the 

grave 
Wins smiles as from a settins; summer sun. 



She knelt beside his couch. Her fair, slight 

hands 
Were clasp'd upon her breast ; and from her lips 
Her spirit's prayer broke murmuringly. Her eyes, 
Large, dark, and trembling in their liquid light. 
Were turn'd to heaven in tears; and through her 

frame 
The panic of a moment chilly ran. 
'Twas but a moment ; and again she rose, 
And bent her form above the bed of torture, 
Like the meek lily o'er the troubled wave. 
Her eye was brighter, and her brow more calm, 
As, with untrembling hand, but pallid cheek, 
She minister'd unto him. He was dying. 
The pestilence had smitten him ; and he, 
Like to a parchment shrivell'd in the flame, 
Wither'd and shrunk beneath it. His fair brow 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 125 

Grew black and blasted ; and where smiles had 

play'd, 
Horror, despair, and agony sat throned. 
His frame, knotted and writhed, lay an unsightly 

lump, 
Wrung with unearthly tortures ; and his soul 
Struggled in death, with shrieks, and howls, and 

horror. 
Men veil'd their eyes, and fled. Yet she stood 

there, — 
Still sweetly calm and unappall'd, she stood. 
Her soft hand smooth'd his torture-wrinkled brow, 
And held the cool draught to his fever'd lips. 
Her sweet voice bless'd him ; and his soul grew 

calm. 
Again she pray'd ; and on his brow a light — 
Was it not hope ? — broke faintly ; and his lip. 
Ashy and quivering, breathed a low Amen. 
Death was upon him, l^lack and hideous death, 
Rending his vitals with a hand of flame. 
And wrenching nerves, and knitting sinews up. 
With iron fingers : — yet his soul grew calm ; 
And while her voice, in angel accents, spoke, 
Eose, with her prayers, to heaven ! One look she 

gave : 



126 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

He lay a blackening, foul, and hideous corse ! 
With sickening heart the pure one turn'd away, — 
To bend her, fainting, o'er another couch. 

Who would not give a life, to win the thoughts, 
By seraphs fann'd, which waked, that night, the 

smile 
That, on her pillow, told she dream'd of Heaven ! 



''^t 0f p0i\ t\\m: it fe |)V 



But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed 
it had been a spirit, and cried out : for they all saw him, and 
were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith 
unto them. Be of good cheer : it is I; be not afraid. 

Mark vi. 49, 50. 



They toil'd, — for night was round tlieir bark.; 

The fierce winds toss'd the white sea-spray ; 
And, like the heavens, their hearts were dark,- 

For Jesus was away, — 
When, lo, a spirit ! See it tread 

The waves that wrestle with the sky ! 
They shriek'd, appall'd : but Jesus said, — 

" Be of good cheer : 'tis L" 

127 



128 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

As o'er the little day of life 

The gathering cloud advances slow, 
And all above is storm and strife, 

And darkness all below ; 
What heart but echoes back the shriek 

Of Nature from the tortured sky ? 
But hark ! o'er all, a whisper meek : — 

" Be of good cheer : 'tis //" 



Who makes affliction here our mate? 

Links love with death, and life with doom ? 
Sends Fears ev'n darker than our Fate, — 

The shadows of the tomb ? 
The hand that smites is raised in love : 

He seeks to save who bids us sigh : 
Who ! murmurer ? Hark, — 'tis from above ! — ■ 

'^ Be of good cheer: 'tis I!" 

When change on change, and ill on ill. 
Have taught the trusting heart to doubt ; 

When earth grows dark, as, faint and chill, 
Hope after hope goes out ; 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 129 

Ev'n then, amid the gloom, a ray 

Breaks lightly on the heavenward eye ; 

And Faith hears, o'er the desolate way, 
^' Be of good cheer: 'tis If' 

And when our weary race is run, 

The toil, the task, the trial o'er ; 
And twilight gathers, dim and dun, 

Upon life's wave-worn shore; 
When struecgling trust, and lingering fear, 

Cast shadows o'er the filmy eye ; 
What rapture then that voice to hear! — 

"Be of good cheer: 'tis //" 



17 



^ thought 



The heavens shall reveal the iniquity of the wicked. 
Job XX. 27. 



How many a soul that seemeth clear, 
Afree from sin as Mercy's tear, 
Will, lighted by th' All-seeing eye, 
Prove ink}^ as a midnight sky ! 

Thus will tlie crystal wave retain 
The nitrate,^ nor yet know a stain ; 
But let the sun the liquid light, 
It trembles, clouds, and turns to night ! 



130 



Wiisdom's ^txp. 



Wisdom's ways are ways of j^leasantiiess, and all her paths are 
peace. Prov. iii. 17. 



Beneath Thy Spirit's hallowing spell, 

The desert world is blest ; 
Its murmurs into music swell, 

Its labours lull to rest ; 
Its sternest fate Thy smile can bless, 

And bid its tempests cease : 
Thy ways are ways of pleasantness, 

And all Thy paths are peace ! 



131 



132 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Our rainbow youth is brigliter, when 

Thy Spirit makes it bright; 
And manhood's yoke is easy then, 

And manhood's burthen light. 
Age knows, with Thee, no weariness. 

And sin and sorrow cease : 
Thy ways are ways of pleasantness, 

And all Thy paths are peace ! 



Wxt f ojj af ^tVvth. 



God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and 
knowledge, and joy. EcCL. ii. 26. 



There is a joy in worth, 

A high, mysterious, soul-pervading charm ; 

Which, never daunted, ever bright and warm, 
^Mocks at the idle, shadowy ills of earth ; 

Amid the gloom is bright, and tranquil in the storm. 

It asks, it needs, no aid; 

It makes the proud and lofty soul its throne : 
There, in its self-created heaven, alone. 

No fear to shake, no memory to upbraid, 
It sits, a lesser God ; life, life is all its own ! 

133 



134 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

The stoic was not wrons; : 

There is no evil to the virtuous brave ; 

Or in the battle's rift, or on the wave, 
Worshipp'd or scorn'd, alone or mid the throng, 

He is himself, — a man ! not life's, nor fortune's slave. 

Power, and wealth, and fame. 

Are but as weeds upon life's troubled tide : 
Give me but these, a spirit tempest-tried, 

A brow unshrinking, and a soul of flame, 

The joy of conscious worth, its courage and its 
pride ! 



®h^ ^tncfem- 



Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me ; for I am deso- 
late and afflicted. PsALM. xxv. 16. 

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, ive are of all men 
most miserable. 1 CoE. xv. IJ. 



Heavy ! Heavy ! Oh, my heart 

Seems a cavern deep and drear, 
From whose dark recesses start, 

Fhitteringly, like birds of night. 
Throes of passion, thoughts of fear, 

Screaming in their flight : 
Wildly o'er the gloom they sweep. 
Spreading a horror dim, — a woe that cannot weep ! 

135 



136 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Weary ! Weary ! What is life 

But a spectre-crowded tomb ? 

Startled with unearthly strife, — 

Spirits fierce in conflict met, 
In the lightning and the gloom. 

The agony and sweat ; 
Passions wild and powers insane, 
And thoughts with vulture beak, and quick Prome- 
thean pain ! 

Gloomy, — gloomy is the day : 

Tortured, tempest-tost the night ; 
Fevers that no founts allay, — 

Wild and wildering unrest, — 
Blessings festering into blight, — 

A gored and gasping breast ! 
From their lairs what terrors start 
At that deep earthquake voice, — the earthquake of the 
heart ! 

Hopeless ! Hopeless ! Every path 

Is with ruins thick bestrewn ; 
Hurtling bolts have flillen to scathe 

All the greenness of my heart; 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 137 

And I now am Misery's own, — 

We never more shall part ! 
My spirit's deepest, darkest wave 
■Writhes with the wrestling storm. Sleep ! Sleep ! 
The grave ! The grave ! 

Maniac murmurer ! Can the grave 
Charm the worm that never dies ? 
If no God should stoop to save, 

Freed the soul, a deathlier doom 
Goads its ghastlier agonies : 

Man sleeps not in the tomb ! 
Not man for earth, — nor earth for bliss : 
Up ! Up ! To Christ ! No home in such a world as 
this ! 



18 



^rtiflidw and povality. 



Deem not the heart that ne'er hath known 
Communion with its heavenly King 

Can make that holier bliss its own, 
Which Grace alone can bring. 



Were every earthly virtue thine, 

(Though, Grace unknown, that ne'er might be,) 
Still, wanting love and light divine, 

How vain morality ! 

138 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 139 

Its brightest boasts are not all bright ; 

They own in secret self their birth : 
Its faint beams shine but in the night, — 

The night of a lost earth. 

Religion cannot live, 'tis true, 

Without the virtues true and hia-h ; 

Still, virtue which Grace never knew 
Belongs not to the sky. 

The life which thrills this mortal frame, 
Divorced from heat, would cease to be ; 

Yet are not heat and life the same, 
Nor virtue, piety. 



^Vm\x xvltiU it x^ ^Htj, 



I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day , 
the night cometh, when no man can work. John ix. 4. 



Work while 'tis day ; for the dreary night cometh, 

When the laggard lies down, but it is not to sleep ; 
Scorn'dTime is avenged in the worm that ne'er dieth;' 

Whatsoe'er a man soweth he also shall reap.- 
Work out your salvation with fear and with trembling,^ 

And dull not the duty with doubt or delay; 
For God and your brother ! earth's harvest-field calls 
you ; 

Then faint not, nor falter ;^ hut work tuhile His day. 

140 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 141 

Work while 'tis day ; for God gave not your being, 

A mockery of life and a burthen to men ; 
To grow and to grovel, to be and to perish, 

Like weeds on the waste, or like fogs o'er the fen. 
Ye were form'd for a purpose, — 'tis active and 
earnest. 

To live and to labour, while labour you may f 
In the forum or furrow, at helm or at hammer,'' 

Whatever the duty, — still ivork while 'tis day ! 



Work! for the true Christian shrinks from no 
duty; 
His spirit of love and of power is brave ;^ 
Not hearing, but doing ;^ not talking, but toiling ;** 
Not sleeping,^" — there's slumber enough in the 
grave. 
The twelve were all chosen from earth's earnest toils- 
men; 
St. Paul wrought for his bread, on his God-guided 
way :" 
And wist ye not Christ, in the work of the Father,^- 
Went about doing good ?" Oh, then, work while 'tis 
day f 



142 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Work while His day. It is not in seclusion, 

In dim dreams of duty, that duty is done : 
Come forth, from the coward repose of the cloister, 

To the field where the good fight is fought and is 
won !'* 
As husband or flither, as friend or as brother. 

For kith or for country, as teacher or stay, 
There are deeds to accomplish, by love and by labour, 

By soul and by sinew : then ivork while 'tis day ! 

Work while 'tis day. True Devotion ne'er wearies ; 

The Faith that is sluggard is cold as the clod ;^^ 
But blest is the servant, whose Lord finds him faith- 
ful ;'' 

Peace, Honour, and Glory, the gifts of his God I" 
Then cheerly to toil ! till life's task-work is over. 

And the voice of our King calls His chosen away ; 
Oh, sweet is their sleep on the bosom of Jesus, 

The sleep of the just,^^ who have ivork'd while 'twas 
day ! 



Mt of the §iglttcou.$. 



If they obey and serve him, they shall spend tlieir days in 
prosperity, and their years in pleasure. Job xxxvi. 11. 

Ood giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and 
knowledge, and joy. Eccl. ii. 26. 

Thoti wilt show me the path of life : in thy presence is fidness 
of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. 

Ps. xvi. 11. 



To him whom God loveth, how lovely is life ! 
It knoweth not sorrow, it knoweth not strife : 
'Tis glad in His smile; in His glory 'tis bright; 
'Tis rich in His bounty, and strong in His might. 

Not fetter'd, nor fear-worn ; not loveless, nor cold ; 
He only is free, and he only is bold : 
For him Hope no falsehood hath, Love hath no tear, 
The Past no reproach, and the Future no fear. 

143 



144 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

His heart bounds in joy, like the fount on the height, 
That sporteth mid greenness, and sparkleth in light ; 
Its pure voice a hymn, and its pathway a joy, 
Enriching the earth, but reflecting the sky. 

His thoughts like glad birds in their melody rise ; 
Or like bright racks uplifted till lost in the skies : 
Sorrow, smiling on him, stands an angel confest; 
And his heart-pulses beat to the harps of the blest. 

Oh, pure is the Summer's ethereal blue. 

Which the glory seems quickening and quivering 

through : 
But purer and fairer, more cloudless and bright, 
Is the radiance that bathes his rapt spirit in light. 

Oh, calm is the wave where the fond lilies dip, 
And tremble not, press'd by its slumbering lip ; 
Where the mirror'd stars sleep as unmoved as above: 
But calmer his spirit who leans on God's love. 

Oh, sweet is the morn's breath, when its roses arouse, 
And the lark shakes Joy's tear-drops from bud-laden 
boughs : 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 145 

But sweeter Love's incense ; and sweeter it grows ; 
Nor falls like tlie dew-drop, nor fades like the rose. 

The slave of the world seeks the joys, in its gloom, 
That light to delude, and that warm to consume ; 
And finds life accursed, with its storm and its strife : 
But to him whom Grod blesseth, how blessed is life ! 



19 






Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose viind is stayed on thee. 
IsA. xxvi. 3. 



Father! be with the wanderer on his way ! 
Though far from us, he yet is near to Thee : 
Thy guardian love — wherever he may be — 

Is there; for Thou art still his trust and stay. 

Oh, be it ever thus ! for he is dear 

To those who love Thee, and who, day by day. 
From his affections drink, as 'neath the ray 

Of the red desert-sun, with holy fear, 

146 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 147 

Thy Israel drank the bright rock-water. May 

Each morn that gilds th' o'erwatching mountain's 

height, 
See, on his brow, as glad and pure a light, 
The light that riseth from the bosom's day ! 
Guard him and guide him home, — the symbol here 
Of that bright home that knows no travail and no 
tear ! 



^owmi U ^. 3^. 



Oh, Saint and Seraph ! Once I had thy prayers ; 

They fell, like summer rain, upon my life : 

And now, amid the struggle and the strife 
Of a rough world, my fainting spirit dares 
(Is it a fault ?) to turn its prayers to thee. 

Thy lake-like soul by every sigh was moved, 

All lovely, loving, and by all beloved : 
And I am purer that thou pray'dst for me ! 
Sweet Spirit ! Thou art with me in the hour 

When prayer and sleep commingle, and the 
thought, 

148 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 149 

Rising, like sky-clouds, heavenward, melts to 
naught : — 
Oh, of one blessed word, the wealth, — the power ! 
Pale pleader ! as thou wert I think of thee : 
Seraph ! (is it a fault ?) Oh, pray again for me ! 



©he ^w^tb inn\ the §nfml 



Is it well ivith the child? And she answered, It is well. 
2 Kings iv. 26. 



FIRST SPIRIT. 

Lingers thus our love-watch'd brother ? 

Sister spirit, call him home ! 
Soothe, with heavenliest balm, his mother ; 

But, oh, bid him come ! 



SECOND SPIRIT. 

O'er his couch she palely prayeth, 
With such heart-throned, holy woe, 

That our angel brother stayeth, — 
Loth to stay or go ! 

150 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 151 

FIRST SPIRIT. 

Sister spirit, whisper to her 

That the angels call her child ; 
Weep with her, and, weeping, woo her 

For her Undefiled. 



SECOND SPIRIT. 

Ah, pale mother ! Sisters, let her 
Still enclasp him to her heart ! 

Can we, angels, love him better? 
Must we bid them part ? 



FIRST SPIRIT. 

'Tis the Father's mercy calls him ; 

And his Saviour, ere the lot — 
Dark and harsh — of Earth befalls him, 

Saith, Forbid him not ! 



SECOND SPIRIT. 

Aid me, then : oh ! pray the Soother 
O'er their hearts to shed His dew ! 



152 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Manly father, mourning mother, 
We will weep with you ! 



FIRST SPIRIT. 

Tell her, — saved from sin and sorrow,- 
Dropping, lark-like, from the sky, 

He will kiss — unfelt — to-morrow, 
The tear-drop from her eye. 



site f nfinitc* 



Behold even to the mooyi, and it shineth not; yea, the stars 
are not pure in his sight. How much less man, that is a ivormf 
and the son of man, ivhic.h is a worm? Job xxv. 5, 6. 



The Infinite ! In vain Thought's glow-worm ray 
Is cast into that Universal Day. 
Creation's all an atom in His sight ; 
Its space a span ; a spark its sea of light ! 
And yet man's insect eye can reach afar 
To the faint glimmer of that solar star, 
Whose beam, seen now, was to this mote world 

thrown 
Before our sun its primal day had known, 



20 



153 



154 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Centuries threescore to reach us ! Yet its lidit 

But gilds the near edge of the Infinite ! 

The crush'd soul gasps with terror : can it be, 

That He, thought faints to image, thinks of me ? 

Of me, "'a worm," so mean and so minute ? 

'Tis even so : presumptuous doubt, be mute ! 

Infinite vastness must, to reason's view. 

Include an infinite minuteness too. 

To Him omnipotent in each as all, 

An atom vast, an universe is small ; 

To Him (be hush'd, my startled soul !) the same 

The fire-fly's sparkle and the central flame; 

A moment, and a new Eternity 

Heap'd on what was, and is, and is to be ! 

If Galileo's tube, with mighty sweep. 
Crowds, as the sea with drops, the upper deep. 
Turn to the blade on which your foot hath trod ; 
See other worlds, — and wonder at their God ! 
A less infinity is here unfurl'd ; 
Each microscopic molecule is a world : 
Atomic realm and race, before the eye, 
Still, as the sight enlarges, multiply; 
And, instinct with creation's spirit, move. 
In all things perfect as the spheres above. 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 155 

Life, love, aud joy, and death, with us they 

share : 
All are, alike, God's creatures and God's care. 

Dare man, then, in earth's tissue but a thread, 
Born with the mortal, dying with the dead, 
Hope life beyond the grave, in day-dreams dim, 
Reserved, of all earth's clods, alone for him? 
Whence springs that hope? If from himself alone, 
'Twere brief and fatal as the mandrake's moan. 
It knows a higher source, a holier trust, 
Than earth and time, their darkness and their 
dust. 

God, for some purpose wise, all things design'd ; 
But for what here the human heart and mind ? 
That heart, whose needs earth's stores can ne'er 

supply ; 
That mind, that joins the councils of the sky. 
That dares to stand by the eternal throne. 
And makes what was, and is to be, its own ? 
Think'st thou for earth these attributes of Heaven, 
A monster'd mockery and a curse, were given ? 
As well both Heaven and earth at once deform, 
And grace with seraph wings the carrion worm ! 



156 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

One seal man bears, one empyreal power, 

That makes him form'd not for the earth and 

hour, — 
Not destined but for sorrow and the sod; 
Man, and man only, knows to worship God! 
Look up, then ; with no traitor fear afraid ; 
Not wholly mean the soul which God hath made ! 
Look up and trust, — the doubt and darkness 

past, — 
For God hath spoken, and His word stands fast ! 
Look up, my soul; not scorn'd, untreasured not; 
Not low, not lost, not unbeloved, forgot; 
Eise, o'er the crumbling world and conquer'd 

grave,— 
For Christ, the God, hath died that soul to save ! 



Death is the doom of sin ; and over all 
Time's and earth's mouldering myriads spreads its 

pall, 
Or good or ill ; neutrality unknown : 
Who woos the evil, maketh death his own ; 
Who steps into th' abyss, from Heaven's high 

wall 
Falls, and still falls, and must forever fall ! 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 157 

What sacrifice could save ? What blood atone ? 
A God the victim for a race undone ! 
Wrestling convulsions tore the tortured earth ; 
The rocks were rent ; the sheeted dead went 

forth ; 
The sun in reeling darkness closed his eye ; 
Nor saw the fainting orbs their Sovereign die ! 
All that Life, Death, and deep Hell's living grave 
Of horror know. He bore, that world to save, 
That hour, — when in Gethsemane He stood, 
A stricken God, His wan brow sweating blood ! 
Centred within that bosom — fearful thought ! — 
x^ll agonies of ages fiercely wrought ; 
Not one man's death, not one man's tortures there ; 
Millions of deaths, and ages of despair : 
The Grave and Hell of all became His own ; 
And infinite pangs for infinite sin atone ! 



It o'er us breaks, as if heaven's arch should 

fall; 
We sink, as sank the stunn'd and blinded Paul ; 
But the soul, cramp'd by chains and hedged by 

sin. 
Cannot expand to let the glory in. 



1 58 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Search tlie dark heart, with introspective ken, — 
Alas ! of savage sin the unsunn'd den, — 
Then to His radiance turn, distraught, dismay'd : 
Can such a price for such a wretch be paid ? 
" Not faithless, but believing," tremble, trust ! 
Christ died to save, — " the just for the unjust." 



God is in mercy boundless as in might : 
He sins who seeks to span The Tufiiiitc. 
Perfection is illimitable Love, 
A love all mete beyond, all thought above. 
Unmeasured as the purpose, was the price ; 
For boundless love, a boundless sacrifice : 
In all. His awful attributes we trace, — 
Infinite Justice, Mercy, Love, and Grace. 
And what is man, that he such Grace should 

know ? 
The son of man, thus saved from self-won woe ? 
Saved, by the sinless blood for sinners spent ; — 
Saved, by the agonies of th' Omnipotent ? 
What can he render back for life so bought ? 
Thought ? Act ? Life ? Soul ?— All sinful,— all are 

nau2;ht ! 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 159 

And yet His ransom'd shall behold His face ; 

No merit theirs, nor meed ; all grace, — all grace ! 

Would we could love as He has loved ! Oh, 

would 
As His grace boundless were our Gratitude !^ 



patiw ginthcttt 



It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing 
praises unto thy name, O Most High ; to show forth thy 
loving-kindness in the ynorning, and thy faithfulness every night. 

Ps. xcii. 1, 2. 



The gloom hath its shapes, and the silence its 
warning ; 
And dim terrors troop 'neath the banner of 
Night : 
But God guards our couch; and Joy comes in the 
morning ; 
Our souls, like the orient, rejoice in His light. 

160 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 161 

Oh, praise, for tlie gentle Sleep, sitting in shadow, 
And singing sweet songs to the worn heart the 
while ; 
Its balmy spell falls as the dew on the meadow, 

When low winds caress, and the loving stars 
smile. 



Forgive, if ill thoughts, o'er those slumbers so 
sainted, 
Career'd, as night birds o'er the sleeping earth 
soar: 
Oh, be all my soul like the crystal untainted, 
"Which, stirr'd in the font, is still pure as before ! 

The sun to his journey goes forth like a giant. 
Enrobed by his Lord with the radiance of day : 

Oh, thus be my pilgrimage, lofty, reliant. 
As true in His service, as strong in His stay ! 

Vouchsafe to deliver from sin and from danger ; 

My loved ones, oh, cherish them, guide and 
defend ; 
Thy grace grant my foeman, Thy bounty the stranger ; 
And blessings, like fruit-clusters, hang round my 
friend ! 

21 



162 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

So past be each day, that, when all days are over, 
When the blind sun hath sunk, a spent spark, from 
the sky. 

My soul shall — though darkness the universe cover — 
Arise to that Sun where the day cannot die ! 



f wpw §ott$. 



I will both lay me down in peace and sleep : for thou, Lord, 
only makest me dwell in safety. Ps. iv. 8. 



Praise for the blessed day ! 

Pardon for all its wrath, for all its wrong ! 
May, like its sun, life pass away ; 

Or like the sweet notes of its last bird's song. 

When sleep hath seal'd mine eye. 

And the unconscious arm forgets to guard, 

Be Thou, that never slumberest,' nigh ! 

Faith sleeps in peace, whiles God keeps watch and 
ward! 

163 



164 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

When night is on the earth, 

Then forest tyrants prowl abroad for prey ; 
Thus guilty thoughts, in dreams, steal forth : 

But be Thou in my heart, — its night is day ! 

Bless Thee, Lord, for sleep ; 

The brave and free ; nor slave to "Want nor Will ! 
Its mimic world forgets to weep ; 

The wrong is righted, and the storm is still ! 

The panting soul drinks deep 

From its untroubled founts, and lives anew : 
Thus may I rise, new-born, from sleep, 

Thy word to cherish, and Thy will to do ! 

Death is the worn soul's rest, 

And sleep the body's ; both are sent to save : 
After life's weary day, oh, blest 

And welcome as my couch may be my grave ! 

When my last night shall fall, 

Unto its morrow be Thy Day-star given ; 
When my last sleep this breast shall pall. 

May I, through Jesus' grace, awake in heaven ! 



®h^ ^hri^tian'jsi %xn^l 



Our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in 
his holy name. Ps. xxxiii. 21. 

All things work together for good to them that love God. 

Rom. viii. 28. 



Why should I fear ! Why tremble ? 

I know in whom I trust : 
Not mine the rainbow hope that weeps 

Bright tear-drops in the dust. 
My conscious soul bears witness, 

Nor asks of sage or seer ; 
I feel that my Eedeemer lives : 

Then wherefore should I fear ? 



165 



166 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

Though I be weak, — a shadow,— 

A sere leaf on the wave, — 
A graveyard meteor flitting by,— 

Is He not strong to save ? 
A present help in trouble ? 

No other aid I seek ; 
If I am His, His might is mine : 

Then who shall call me weak ? 



If pallid Penury smite me, 

If ever poor as He, 
Earth's beggar wealth is poorer far 

Than can His followers be. 
Our Heaven-intrusted treasures 

Beyond the grave endure ; 
And rich in Hope, in Faith, and Grace, 

Oh, how can we be poor ? 



And what though sorrow-clouded ? 

Beyond that cloud our sky 
Is light and love ; there Christ will wipe 

The tears from every eye. 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 167 

Eternal morning dawneth, 

With heavenly glory glad ; 
And coming day makes bright the night : 

Then say not we are sad. 



And am I scorn'd ? Earth's honour, — 

A torch-light in the tomb ! 
The world a pyre, — 'twere darkness, if 

His smile lit not the gloom. 
Since man reviled his Maker, 

And Calvary's cross was borne, 
There is no glory out of heaven : 

Earth cannot do us scorn ! 



Do life's wild storms o'erwhelm me. 

His voice the wave can calm ; 
Should shrivell'd sickness waste my frame, 

In Gilead there is balm. 
And e'en in Death's dark valley 

God's starry words shine clear, 
That who believes, shall never die : 

Then wherefore should I fear ? 



^m m nmt 



Sin no more, lest a ivorse thing come unto thee. 
John v. 14. 



Art thou young, yet hast not given 
Dewy bud and bloom to Heaven? 

Tarriest till Life's morn be o'er? 
Pause or ere the bolt is driven ! 
Sin no more ! 

Art thou ag6d? Seek'st thou power? 
Rank, or gold, — of dust the dower ? 

Fame to wreathe thy wrinkles hoar ? 
Dotard ! death hangs o'er thy hour ! 
Sin no more! 

168 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 169 

Art thoiT blest? False joys caress thee ; 
And the world's embraces press thee 

To its hot and canker'd core : 
Waken ! Heaven alone can bless thee. 
/S'm no more! 

Art thou wretched ? Hath each morrow 
Sown its sin to reap its sorrow ? 

Turn to Heaven, — repent, — adore : 
Hope new light from Faith can borrow ; 
Sin no more I 

May a meek and rapt devotion 
Fill thy heart, as waves the ocean, 

Glassing heaven from shore to shore : 
Then wilt thou — calm'd each emotion — 
Sin no morel 



22 



mmV 



This people have I formed for myself ; they shall show forth 
my praise. Isa. xliii. 21. 



Why was this world — the beautiful — created, 
With all its wondrous wealth of life and light, 
Oceans, and sky-crown'd hills, and valleys bright, 

Fragrant with zephyrs soft, to music mated ? 

Why ! That man, quicken'd by God's breath, should 
start 
Forth from its dust ; and, His vicegerent, reign, 
Lord of the varied and the vast domain. 

And why was man created ? That his heart 

170 



DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 171 

Slioukl mirror Heaven, as ocean doth the sun ; 

And make the earth an altar, whence should 

rise, 
From free souls sinless, incense to the skies. 
But wherefore worship thus the Holy One ? 
To win His smile, — all that gives life its worth, — 
^ And, conquering Heaven, to make a heaven of 
earth ! 



®he l^iuflcviujj ^it^intcv. 



He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall 
doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with 
him. Ps. cxxvi. (>. 



The snow-ficakes kiss the ploughman's crimson'd face; 

He guides the share and turns the furrow still, 
With manly patience and with measured pace, 

Nor heeds the winter lingering on the hill. 

The foamy flood roars sullen through the vale ; 

The crow-flocks flap the blast with labouring wings; 
The bare oak shivers in the northern gale : — 

But on the topmost bough the blue-bird sings. 

172 



DEVOTIONAL FOE MS. 173 

It sings of spring, — the ploughman hears the song, — 
Of bridal April and of blooming May : 

And as he treads with sturdy step along, 
Hope in his bosom sings the selfsame lay. 

He hears the Summer rustlino; in his corn ; 

Cloud chases cloud across his bending grain ; 
The mower's scythe-song greets the golden morn, 

The soft eve welcomes home the loaded wain. 

And Autumn's wealth, its pleasures and its pride. 
His heart with joy, his ear with music, fill ; 

His plough he follows with a quicker stride, 
Nor heeds the winter lingering on the hill. 

Thus to the Christian, — wheresoe'er he roam, — 
Planting the Orient, Afric, or the Isles, 

Or the frost-fetter'd fields, alas ! of home,— 
A promised harvest mid the winter smiles. 

Spring coy and cold, the labourers faint and few ; 

The hard, chill glebe unyielding to the share ; 
The shrill blast shrieks the leafless forest through : 

But from on High a voice dispels despair. 



174 DEVOTIONAL POEMS, 

Before liira the redeem'd — Christ's harvest — stand ; 

And hosts with hymns of praise his bosom thrill ; 
His plough he seizes with a strengthen'd hand, 

Nor heeds the winter lingering on the hill. 



<f0nnct 



ON THE DEATH OF AN AGED CHRISTIAN. 



"0 Death, where is thy sting?" he saiJ, and 
smiled, — 
That wither'd, white-hair 'd man of God. — " Be- 
hold ! 
Is that sting lieref — Glorious of soul, and I'old 
For holy Truth, yet lowly as a child, 
The Saint and Sage loan dying ! But the light 
Of his rapt soul met radiance from above : — 
" Tell me, my friends, doth not this moment 
prove 
That on the livincr Rock of Truth and Eidit 



176 DEVOTIONAL POEMS. 

My faith was founded ? Let my latest breath 
Ask, is there here for bigot fancy room ? 
Here, in the dread calm of th' o'ershadowing 
tomb ? 
JVo ! ' Tis Reality ! And now in death 
I know it, and am happy !" — So he died; — 
Or so began to live : — for all is death beside ! 



NOTES. 



NOTES. 



DEITY. 

Note 1. Page 18. 
The fool liath said in his heart, There is no (iod. Ps. xiv. 

Note 2. Page 18. 

Bold with joy, 
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place 
(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism, 
Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon. 
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close. 
And, hooting at the glorious Sun in heaven. 
Cries out, "Where is it ?" 

Cokridffe. 
179 



180 NOTES. 



Note 3. Page 21. 

The Sephai'vites burnt their children in fire to Adram- 
melech. 2 Kings xvii. 31. 



Note 4. Page 21. 

And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord. . . . Then 
did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination 
of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, 
the abomination of the children of Ammon. 

1 Kings xi. 6, 7. 



Note 5. Page 21. 

Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together 
for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to 
rejoice. . . . And they called for Samson out of the prison- 
house ; and he made them sport : and they set him between 
the pillars. . . . And Samson took liold of the two middle 
pillars ujion which the house stood. . . . And Samson said, 
Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself 
with all his might ; and the house fell upon the lords, and 
upon all the people that were therein. Judges xvi. 23-30. 



Note G. Page 21. 

And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashta- 
roth. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. 

Judges ii. 13, 14. 



NOTES. 181 



Note 7. Page 22. 



The Greek and Roman mythology sufficiently explains the 
moral turpitude of those nations. The praise which a classic 
partiality bestows upon "Greek and Eoman virtue" cannot 
be vindicated by their history or their literature. In their 
origin, their feebleness and jjoverty rendered the few negative 
virtues which they possessed necessary for their defence and 
existence ; but, even then, wrong, when convenient and pro- 
fitable, was seldom pretermitted ; and with the ability to 
indulge the propensities inculcated by their religion, were 
developed vices for which modern civilization, with all its 
iniquities, has no parallel. A truthful picture of the moral 
profligacy of the ancients would be too hideous and revolting 
to be tolerated by the modern reader. Historians too gene- 
rally affect to ascribe the decay of those nations to the 
natural effects of overgrown triumph and excessive power 
and wealth ; the real cause is to be found in a religion that 
besotted the people. The Christian imtriot may confidently 
anticipate a brighter destiny in the future of his country. 



Note 8. Page 22. 

Sophroniscus' son. — Socrates has been held up by some 
writers as a martyr for the belief of one only God, in oi:)po- 
sition to the prevailing polytheism ; and it has been argued 
that the last religious act of his life, the directing a sacrifice 
to ^sculapius, was meant to ridicule the god to whom this 
office of worship was. rendered, — thus representing the best 
character of antiquity as playing the hypocrite or buffoon on 
the brink of the grave. The truth is that Socrates attempted 
to reform, not to overthrow, the heathen worshij). He 



182 NOTES. 

exhorts his discii^les to consult the pagan oracles in all 
matters that were beyond the reach of human foresight. He 
was a strict observer of the religious rites of his country, and 
even believed himself to be under the immediate and super- 
natural influence of one of the pagan deities, — the celebrated 
demon of Socrates. 



Note 9. Page 24. 

Hear, Israel : The Lord our God is one Lord. 

Deut. vi. 4. 

Note 10. Page 24. 

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and 
declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness 
^t all. 1 John 1. 5, 

Note 11. Page 24. 

Thy righteousness is like the great mountains ; thy judg- 
ments are a great deep : O Lord, thou preservest man and 
beast. Ps. xxxvi. 6. 

Note 12. Page 24. 

The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many 
waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea. 

Ps. xciii. 4. 

Note 13. Page 24. 

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eter- 
nity, whose name is Holy. Isa. Ivii. 15. 



NOTES. 183 



Note 14. Page 24. 

For I am the Lord, I cliange not ; therefore ye sons of 
Jacob are not consumed. Mai. in. 0. 



Note 15. Page 24. 

He ruleth by his power for ever ; his eyes behold the 
nations : let not the rebellious exalt themselves. 

Ps. Ixvi. 7. 

Note 16. Page 24. 

For he knoweth our frame ; he remembereth that we are 
dust. Ps. ciii. 14. 



IMAGE-WORSHIP. 

Note 1. Page 28. 

In the first three centuries after Christ, the Christians had 
no paintings nor images in the churches. In the fourth and 
fifth centuries, the images of bishops and martyrs were intro- 
duced in places of worship, but without adoration ; but in 
the sixth century, people began to kiss them, to burn lights 
and offer incense in honour of them, and to ascribe to them 
miraculous power. Under the Eastern emperor Constan- 
tine v., a council was held at Constantinople, (a, d. 754,) in 
which the use as well as worship of images was condemned, 
Leo, his son and successor, also opposed image-worship ; but 
his wife Irene caused him to be poisoned, in 780 ; and, under 
her influence, a Council at Nice (78G) [not to be confounded 
with the venerable Council of Nice of a. d. 325, which esta- 



184 NOTES. 

lished the Nicene Creed] restored the worship of images, and 
punished those that maintained that nothing but God should 
be worshipped. Her son, Constantine VI., having assumed 
the reins of government, banished Irene from the court ; 
but "her haughty spirit condescended to the arts of dissimu- 
lation ; she flattered the bishops and eunuchs, revived the 
filial tenderness of the prince, regained his confidence and 
betrayed his credulity." {Gibbon.) She succeeded in forming 
a powei'ful conspiracy against him ; and, according to the 
writer just quoted, " he was borne to the i:)orphyry apartment 
of the palace where he had first seen the light. In the mind 
of Irene, ambition had stifled every sentiment of humanity 
and nature ; and it was decreed in her bloody council that 
Constantine should be rendered incapable of the throne ; her 
emissaries assaulted the sleeping prince, and stabbed their 
daggers with such violence and precipitation into his eyes, as 
if they meant to execute a mortal sentence." Thus was 
image-worship established in the Christian Church ! To the 
bloody deed of Irene was attributed a darkness of seventeen 
days which immediately ensued, during which many vessels, 
in mid-day, were driven from their course. Irene died in 
exile and wretchedness ; but her services in the cause of 
iconolatry were not wholly unrewarded : she still retains her 
place in the calendar as a saint. 

The controversy was afterwards renewed. The Emperor 
Theophilus was the last of the Iconoclasts, or image-breakers. 
After his death, his widow " by the fiction of a tardy repent- 
ance absolved the fame and the soul of her deceased 
husband ; the sentence of the Iconoclast patriarch was 
commuted from the loss of his eyes to a whipping of two 
hundred lashes ; the bishops trembled ; the monks shouted ; 
and the festival of Orthodoxy preserved the annual memory 
of the triumph of images." 



NOTES. 185 

BLASPHEMY. 
Note 1. Page 32. 
And Saul sware to her by the Lord, saying, As the Lord 
liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this 
thing. 1 iSam. xxviii. 10. 

Note 2. Page 33. 
And Jejihthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said. If 
thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Amnaon into 
mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever conieth forth 
of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace 
from the children of Amnion, shall surely be the Lord's, 
and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering. . . . And he smote 
them. . . . And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, 
and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tim- 
brels and with dances : and she was his only child ; beside 
her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, 
when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my 
daughter ! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one 
of them that trouble me : for I have opened my mouth unto 
the Lord, and I cannot go back. And she said unto him. 
My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth vinto the Lord, do to 
me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth ; 
forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of 
thine enemies, even of the children of Amnion. And she 
said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me : let me 
alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the 
mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. And 
he said, Cto. And he sent her away for two months : and she 
went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon 
the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two 
months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her 
according to his vow which he had vowed. Judges xi. 30-39. 

24 



186 NOTES. 

FILIAL PIETY. 

Note 1. Page 40. 

And he [Elisha] went up from thence unto Beth-el : and as 
he was going up by the way, there came forth little children 
out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, 
thou bald head ; go up, thou bald head. And he turned 
back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name 
of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of 
the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. 

2 Kings ii. 23, 24. 

Note 2. Page 41. 

And he said. Cursed be Canaan : a servant of servants shall 
he be unto his brethren. Gen. ix. 25. 



HOMICIDE. 

Note 1. Page 55. 

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free 
indeed. John viii. 36. 

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath 
made us free. Gal. v. 1. 

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty. 

Gal. v. 13. 
As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of malicious- 
ness, but as the servants of God. 1 Pet. ii. 16. 

For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the 
Lord's freeman ; likewise also he that is called, being free, is 
Christ's servant. 1 Cor. vii. 22. 

" He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves beside." Cowper. 



NOTES. 187 

Note 2. Page 57. 

The Law of Honour is constructed by, and for the use of, 
people of fashion. Dr. Palei/s Moral Philosophy. 



Note 3. Page 59. 
Alexander Hamilton. 

IMPEOBITY. 

Note 1. Page 64. 

In less favoured spots, the want of food, arising from the 
want of institutions to secure property, leads people even to 
devour each other. Dr. Palcy. 

Note 2. Page 69. 

He that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them 
iir the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. 

Jer. xvii. 11. 

CALUMNY. 

Note 1. Page 76. 
Domitian. 

DEATH THE DELIVEREE. 

Note 1. Page 105. 

Unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. 

Ps. Ixviii. 20. 



188 NOTES. 

Note 2. Page 106. 

There the wicked cease from troubling : and there the 
weary be at rest. Job iii. 17. 

Note 3. Page lOG. 

The righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He 
shall enter into peace. Isa. Ivii. 1, 2. 

Note 4. Page 107. 

My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have for- 
gotten me. Job xix. 14. 

Note 5. Page 107. 

A good name is better than precious ointment ; and the day 
of death than the day of one's birth. Eccles. vii. 1. 

Note 6. Page 107. 

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest. Matt. xi. 28. 

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, 
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : 
Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours ; 
and their works do follow them. Rev. xiv. 13. 

Note 7. Page 107. 

Terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth him 
away in the night. Job xxvii. 20. 

Note 8. Page 108. 

He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. 

1 Pet. iv. 1. 



NOTES. 189 

Note 9. Page 108. 

God destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. Job ix. 22. 

One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and 
quiet. His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are 
moistened with marrow. And another dieth in the bitter- 
ness of his soul, and never eateth with pleasure. They shall 
lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them. 

Job xxi. 23-26. 

I have said to corruption, Thou art my father : to the 
worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. Job xvii. 14. 

There is no discharge in that war. Ecdes. viii. 8. 

What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death ? 

Ps. Ixxxix. 48. 

Thou carriest them away as with a flood ; they are as a 
sleep : in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. 
In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth ujj ; in the 
evening it is cut down, and witliereth. Ps. xc. 5, 6. 



A THOUGHT. 

Note 1. Page 130. 

The nitrate of silver in solution in water is translucent, 
but exposed to the sun, becomes black. 



WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 

Note 1. Page 140. 

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 

Mark ix. 44. 
Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be 
quenched. Isa. Ixvi. 24. 



190 NOTES. 

Note 2. Page 140. 

Whatsoever a man soweth, tliat shall he also reap. 

Gal. vi. 7. 

Note 3, Page 140. 

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 

Thil ii. 12. 

Note 4. Page 140. 

And let us not be weary in well doing : for in due season 
we shall reap, if we faint not. Gal, vi. 9. 



Note 5. Page 141. 

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, 
that if any would not work, neither should he eat. 

2 Thess. iii. 10. 



Note 6. Page 141. 

Not slothful in business ; fervent in spirit ; serving the 
Lord. Horn. xii. 11. 



Note 7. Page 141. 

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear ; but of power, 
and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Tim. i. 7. 



Note 8. Page 141. 

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, de- 
ceiving your own selves. James i. 22. 



NOTES. 191 

Note 9. Page 141. 

Not every one that saith vmto me, Loi'd, Lord, shall enter 
into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of 
my Father which is in heaven. Matt. vii. 21. 

Note 10. Page 141. 
Therefore let us not sleep. 1 Thess. v, 6. 

Note 11. Page 141. 

Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught ; but 
wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we 
might not be chargeable to any of you. 2 Thess. iii. 8. 

Note 12. Page 141. 

Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business ? 

Luke ii. 49. 

Note 13. Page 141. 
[Jesus] went about doing good. Acts x. 38. 

Note 14. Page 142. 

I have fought a good fight, 1 have finished my course, I 
have kept the faith. 2 Tim. iv. 7. 

Note 15. Page 142. 

Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 

James ii. 17. 

Note 16. Page 142. 

Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he comoth 
shall find so doing. Matt. xxiv. 46. 



192 NOTES. 

Note 17. Page 142. 
Glor}', honour, and peace, to eveiy man that worketh good. 

Rom. ii. 10. 

Note 18. Page 142. 

Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from hence- 
forth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their 
hibours ; and their works do follow them. Rev. xiv. 13. 



THE INFINITE. 

Note 1. Page 159. 

If there were so great faith in earth as there is reward 
looked for in heaven, merciful Lord, what love should we 
have to the life to come I TertuUian. 



VESPER NOTES. 

Note 1. Page 1G3. 
He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Ps. cxxi. 3. 

SONNET. 

Note 1. Page 170. 

If you ask why God created the world, it was for no other 
cause but that man should be created ; if you demand why 
man was created, it was because he should worship his 
Creator ; if you ask why he should worship his Creator, it was 
for no other cause but that he should be rewarded by Him. 
Lactantius, Lib. VI. de Divln. prmn. 






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